Conspicuous consumption

I've just come from drooling over my new fridge. Actually, no, I wasn't actually drooling over it, since no drool is going to be allowed within 5 feet of it for the next few weeks (until the novelty wears off)! Let's just say I was looking at it lovingly...

I've been waiting for this fridge for a long time. In fact, it was promised to me as a birthday present last year, but, well, shit happens...and the fridge got put on the back burner.



You couldn't exactly call it a birthday present this year. Well, yes, you could - this is my birthday present to myself. My husband did initiate the enquiries, but in the end I decided to go for the rent-to-buy option from the very nice hire mob we use for our washing machine, to get exactly the fridge I want NOW for which I will have the privilege of paying too much money. In other words, I got tired of waiting. (There also a raft of reasons why we really needed a new fridge now...the old one was tiny, seals cracked and harbouring goodness-knows-what, chewing electricity, leaking all over the timber floor etc etc.)

I've actually done incredibly well this birthday. As an example of manifesting wishes, I'm a bit of a shining light at the moment.



I'd had the idea, a year or two ago, of having three little Wish List pages up on our kitchen cork board, one for each of us, to scribble down ideas (large and small) for birthdays and Christmases and so on...the sort of thing to refer to when the mother-in-law or the nana ask for gift ideas, more than as a manifestation tool. But, hey, it works...well, at least it seemed to work for the boys. Their lists kept getting crossed off. My list remained the same, or rather the only change was me adding a couple more things to it (hey, a girl can dream).

All of a sudden, as I'm gleefully crossing off "fridge" this morning, I noticed how incredibly blessed I've been this birthday. My mother and brothers bought me a half-day spa package in Byron Bay (no, I am not smirking), my husband paid off my food processor layby, my best friend bought me a subscription to one of my favourite magazines (Notebook), another close friend bought me a timber photo box frame and album...suddenly my list is almost all crossed off.



Yes, I know - it's all just "stuff", and "stuff" is not important in the big scheme of things...I know that compared to so many people in the world we are incredibly affluent, and that even though we feel we have been really struggling for a long time, compared to many others we live in luxury and comfort.

But allow me to indulge myself in the pleasure of all this wish-fulfillment for a little while, to wallow in conspicuous consumption. I'll be back to the consciousness of recycling, and budgeting, and making too little go too far again shortly.

Right now, I'm going to make an excuse to go look at my fridge again...