For me

For my birthday, the only thing I could come up with was a footbath. I've had to put off bunion surgery--indefinitely now, given the job situation and my soon-to-occur attempts to get pregnant. But my feet have been killing me, so I'm trying just about anything I can. My dance teacher suggested the footbath, and I found a decently priced model over at Amazon.

But I didn't get the information passed along in near enough time. And then when Trillian mentioned it to her parents, it turned out that her mother has had one in the garage that she doesn't use anymore, same brand as the one I wanted, same basic features, shy only one non-important frill. So she brought it by for me to try, saying I could either keep that one or at least use it to decide if I wanted a different one.

Then as my birthday present, they got me a gift certificate to Amazon. I'm supposed to use it on something I really want.

Except I find that very hard to do. Not that I don't have some frivolous desires, but I do tend to make myself justify most of my purchases.

If I had received the gift certificate a few days ago, I would have used the money for the gluten-free items we purchase in bulk from Amazon (case discount, plus free shipping). As it is right now, I have two academic books sitting in my cart. One of them I definitely want on my reference shelf. The other I could probably get from the library, but it's very much in my field and will end up in my personal library some day. They would be the responsible purchase.

I don't have any well-formed idea of what else I might consider. Other equally practical items for other areas of my life, maybe. But even those aren't exactly leaping to mind.

Of course, I could just sit on it for a while and wait until Battlestar Galactica's final season and Pushing Daisies are on DVD...