I had a really bad Valentines Day. I mean really bad. It started with breakfast where Panda and I got into an argument over food. I wanted to do something special but Panda wanted to cook at home. He ended up winning. He went to work and I went off to do my own thing. Afterwards, he went home to me and we went out to dinner. I ordered crab, which is a special treat for me, but the waiter some how missed it. Then, while in the process of selling my car, the buyer finally told me that he didn't have enough money, therefore, no car sales. During dinner, Mr. Panda did surprise me with something that I think is absolutely wonderful. A trip to the spa! I got a facial, a full body massage, a hot stone treatment, as well as a water treatment. He also kicked in for a full set of nails and a pedi! Then, after picking me up, he presented me with a gorgeous ring! Pacific Fire Topaz, a full 2 carat center stone with .75 carat side stones in cushion cut with white gold band. The ring is absolutely gorgeous!!

So all in all, it turned from bad to really good.

We are in the process of starting our diets tomorrow. This means no more pizza, burgers, or any other type of junk food. We are cutting back on dairy and sugars, and we are working on making our bodies slim and trim again! Thanks to the show "Bulging Brides", Panda is also going on my diet with me. This means after work and dinner, I'm hitting the gym!

I made my first Bento for Mr. Panda yesterday. I can't post any pictures because the computers at my home office are a little funny. Anyhow, the first tier contained curry chicken, the second was curry chicken, pasta salad and red seedless grapes. The sandwich container holds the focaccia bread for the chicken curry and a toasted berry bagel with grape jelly for a snack along with two cheese bites tucked in the sides. I told Mr. Panda he had to eat it and tell me what he didn't like about the meal, whether it was too much or too little, and if the whole meal looked a little bland. This bento didn't include any leftovers simply because Mr. Panda ate them all while I was at the store. No joke, we had a bunch of leftovers from when we were on vacation that I was going to put in there like the fried gyoza with the garlic soy sauce, the seafood nuggets with the chili plum sauce, and the spaghetti with home made mini meatballs. I went to the store not saying anything because there was so much left in the fridge and Mr. Panda says before I leave "I'm hungry.". Thinking, like a normal person, I'm going to the store, he'll wait till I cook something fresh for him. Nope. I came home to a full Panda on the couch with various tupperware containers littered around him while he watched the "O'Reilly Factor" and yelled at the television at all the democrats that are on "The View".

Tonight, I will most likely be making something to eat at Mr. Pandas. I do have cookware at home and while my home is comfortable, it's much easier to cook for 4 people (his roommates) then it is for two. Esxpecially because everything is centered around larger groups. I wish I could open a store that was meant for the single person. You don't want 8 pieces of fried chicken? No prob, here's a thigh and a wing. You don't want 6 eggs? No prob, here's 2. There's nothing that caters to the single person. Even the Dinners Ready locations really only cater to couples and families and while I have a couple in my equation, I'd much rather just cook smaller portions.

Tonights dinner will be a surprise!

Bento gear coming tomorrow? Check!

Bento store tomorrow? Check!

Bento crazy?? Check, check, check!

My Bento gear is coming tomorrow. I'm quite excited.

We're also going to Daiso tomorrow. I'm Super Excited.

Why? Because I've gone Bento crazy. In the last 5 days I've purchased enough bento gear to go absolutely crazy. What's even better is getting more. Have I made a bento yet? Nope. We're still on vacation so it will be a couple more days before I prepare some Bento goodness. The thing that really sucks is that only Mr. Panda will be getting the Bento's because I will be working from my home office which doesn't really give me lunch time and then I'm off to a trip to California for business where I've been seriously considering bringing a bento box on the plain and having a couple bento's with me for when I'm in California. I've noticed that for a while I've been having issues when it comes to eating out. It's not that I'm adverse to eating out, I've just had issues.

Issue one: Hair in my food. It never seems to fail. For some reason I'm that person that gets hair in their food. I notice when a chef isn't wearing a hairnet. I notice when there's a bug in the food or a rat running around. I notice the little details. It could be the fact that I work in finance and therefore must watch the details with the minute possibility that someone is screwing up. My friend Elle always said I was good at reconiliation (basically in accounting terms, finding where someone screwed up and questioning why they did.) and it follows a path into regular life.

Issue two: I've been feeling awful sick whenever we eat out. I had a life changing experience a couple of weeks ago and since then my stomach has not acted in my best interests. No matter where we go out to eat, I feel sick. The opposite if I cook at home. Perhaps it's because I tend to eat things that are a bit healthier and we're always looking to make things light because Mr. Panda has cholesterol issues and I just have "issues", but the food that we make at home is normally a lot better then the kind of stuff that we get at restaurants. i.e. we made beef stroganoff together. Beef stroganoff over rice which the taste was suprisingly not that bad  (I didn't get to tweak it in anyway because Mr. Panda doesn't like when I add spices into his favorite foods that aren't supposed to be there.) and it was eaten up to completion.

Issue three: Price. Everything has gotten a little more expensive when going out to eat. I remember being able to grab a twenty and just go but these days we have to have our credit cards in hand simply because the foods that we choose, while sometimes can fit in that 20 dollar mold, tend to go over more often then not. We both make good salaries and I'm virtually debt free but Mr. Panda has a car payment, housing payment, college loans, etc and I feel pretty crunchy that he pays for our food a majority of the time.

I've been thinking of what kinds of foods to have in the Bento box. A lot of things that have crossed my mind I like the idea of having a lot of different kinds of salads and potato salads and such but as we all know, we can't subsist on potato salad itself. Most of the time the need for meat comes into factor. I found that seafood nuggets from the frozen section of our local Korean market will hold up well. Also the gyoza that I often see, but I purchased the wrong type this time. I got the flat type last time and this time I got the more rounded full of meat type. I also got little sauce containers for soy sauce even though Mr. Panda has an adversion to soy sauce. (Which kind of amazes me because most of the caucasion people I know love soy sauce on just about everything. I don't think Mr. Panda likes too much salt though.)

Another great thing is all the fruit I can put inside of the containers. It kind of saddens me that I missed out on Harvest time in the Pacific Northwest. I like to go to Mid-Washington and pick up the fruit that is sold off the farms and make them into preserves and jams and lovely fruit pies. I didn't get to enter anything into the state fair this year because I was a bit too preoccupied. Boo!

Time for bed. I got three books from the book store, but it might have been nicer if I was reading them from a new Amazon Kindle. Ahem... Mr. Panda? Just joking!

I realize I haven't done the shopping list in a while:

-More Bento boxes for the crazy Bento person. I should buy some Bento books too.

-Japanese cooking books.

-Amazon Kindle.

-That corvette is still high on my list.

-More things for my trip to California.

-Some cute things for while I'm sleeping over at Pandas. I really need to get one of those little makeup plastic containers and fill it with things I need over here. After two years, you'd think that I would have already placed things of my own in the bathroom, but I haven't. I'm not really that kind of girlfriend. Don't get me wrong, there's times when I put things at Panda's place and leave them but every once in a while I pull everything together and bring them back to my place.

-Some organizing stuff for my car. It's a complete mess inside and I really need to clean it out.

-A nice fancy dancy car vacuum. I bought the "Kone" but I hated it. Not enough "suction" power.

-A money bag. I'd like to buy a million dollar money bag for 50 bucks. Wishful thinking now.