BUY! BUY! BUY!

Lately, I have been tempted by desires to purchase everything. Oh, such desires! I want cute shirts and shoes and jeans and skirts and coats, and little doodads that have no purpose. I want suits for Sean and fancy jeans that he would refuse to even wear. I want funky tshirts for Gabriel, and handmade jackets, imported jumpers. I want cameras and computers and furniture and cookware and linens. I want trips to Hawaii and weekends in the country. I want cars and flat screen, hi def televisions with tivo. I want new hair cuts and make up. I want baby carriers and baby booties and fancy strollers. I want things decorated with embroidery and crochet. I want flowering plants and potted herbs and strawberry pots. I want garden furniture and sun awnings. I want exotic fruit. I want filet mignon. I want organic produce. I want great wine. I want micro brewed beers. I want deep dark chocolate truffles. I want caviar. I've never wanted caviar, before.

I've spent a long time not spending. A really long time being very frugal. This is the cost of being a stay at home mom. I usually pride myself on my ability to spend very little, to do a lot with nothing. I am a repurposer, a creative thrifter, a sidewalk scavenger, a yard saler, and I am proud of this. But I've had to be so frugal I haven't even been able to thrift shop. I've repressed my shopping side so much, that she's starting to grow larger and sprout another much uglier, louder and more expensive head.

But I don't want to be this rabid consumer. (As if I had the money to be) I want to live lightly on the land. It'd be cool to hand knit sweaters and carve bedsteads and farm and grow things to feed my family. Trade services and goods the way people once did. This is a lot harder to do in the city than it is in the country. Although I did know someone who made cabbage soup out of ornamental cabbages he had poached from the side of some building.

In my heart, I am a country girl. It must be my grandparents' blood coming out. My grandpa who gave up his chicken farm and built his own boat that he sailed down the Mississippi to a new life in Florida. Or my grandma (the other side) who grew up in Puerto Rico in a palm frond hut, that would blow down at each hurricane. They would just put another one up when the weather calmed.

In reality, I am a city girl, with the attendant rent hikes and expensive tastes. I do like the Museums, and gourmet food, and I'm a fashion freak, although not a slave to it.

I like to keep a balance between the country girl and the city girl, and usually I manage. But lately, these unrequited urges to be fancy have-it-all are overwhelming me. I want all those useless frilly things! I want to be like the girls I read about! I want to buy all the baby supplies that I know we don't need! I want to climb the Empire State Building like King Kong and shout from the top of it:

"I WANT IT ALL!!!!"