Some women struggle to come up with interesting dinner ideas. For me, the challenge is packing lunch for my 7 1/2 year old daughter and myself. No matter how many exotic cold cuts I buy at the deli or articles I read (or even write!), I find myself resorting to unimaginative standbys like peanut butter and jelly, turkey sandwiches, and—when I'm super lazy and desperate—pasta with olive oil and Parmesan. (The mommy police will come get me one day, I know it.) The situation has become even more desperate since September, when my daughter started attending a new school. Not only do the children need to bring lunch, they also have to bring a morning snack (with beverage), and post-school/pre-school bus snack to tide them over before they arrive home (where most of them will likely be plied with even more food).

I am not alone. Tanya Singer, RealSimple.com's Executive Editor, also struggles with putting together healthy, tasty lunches for her five-year-old son. But as a true web wizard, she's found a new source of inspiration: the Laptop Lunches photo gallery. Created by Amy Hemmert and Tammy Pelstring, the site features dozens and dozens of improbably compelling photos of lunch. (See the bottom of this post for a sample.) And though you will find inspiration on their pages no matter what kind of containers you use, I suspect the key to creativity may be Amy and Tammy's ingenious plastic bento lunchboxes.

"Baggies are uninspiring," Amy tells me. "Boxes give you a framework for packing lunch. All of a sudden, your creative juices get flowing. And when you are done, you have something like a work of art." Not coincidentally, that is precisely the concept of bento, says Amy. "It's a work of art and good for you at the same time." This surge in creativity may explain the cult following bento box lunches have among so many people. There are entire groups devoted to the practice of packing tasty little lunches in cool containers. Flickr.com, the photo sharing website, has sections devoted to laptop lunches,  kids eats and lunchbox food. And if you really want to be impressed, check out this amazing page of lunches by Deborah Hamilton, who is also responsible for the addictive lunchinabox.net blog. 

If finding an outlet for your creativity isn't impetus enough for packing your lunch, the financial savings should be. Amy of Laptop Lunches turned me on to this neat calculator that lets you figure out how much you can cut costs by taking lunch from home instead of buying it. It's worth trying, even if you don't plan on investing your savings.

Below are some Laptop Lunch images just to get your imagination flowing. For the severely lunch-challenged like me, I recommend checking out one of the links in the post above, too.

Do you have a hard time packing lunch? What tricks work for you?

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(Laptop Lunch photos courtesy of Amy Hemmert.)