Rewarding Yourself

Ancrene Wiseass, a medievalist whose blog I like to read, started an interesting thread on her blog about rewarding oneself for a job well done. That made me think of the Eeva Kilpi poem (my mom's favorite) that translates from Finnish roughly as:

Going to sleep, I think: Tomorrow I will heat up the sauna, Pamper myself, Walk, swim, wash, Invite myself to evening tea, Speak to myself in a friendly and admiring way, praising: You brave little woman, I believe in you. - Eeva Kilpi -

Some of the things I like to do to pamper myself are:

Buying:

• a new bookmark ($2)
  
• a gel-pen in a pretty color ($1)
  
• a fruity or flowery soap ($4)
  
• a nice candle that makes the house smell like cookies ($2-8)

If I've been really good, I'll maybe treat myself to a mani-pedi ($35 here) or let myself enter Barnes & Noble ($$$); I also like baking, so maybe I'll make some orange-cranberry muffins and eat far too many of them in one sitting. Starbucks, of course, is a perpetual favorite.

Oh, and before you point it out, I admit, these are all material rewards. I'm shallow, what can I say?  No; the other, rewarding non-material things I already make time for, such as walking with the doggies, taking a bubble bath, watching movies or TV with yummies, reading fluffy chick lit, killing orcs in my jammies, etc.

Anyway, back to the material rewards :P  I had a little extra cash a few weeks back, so I visited another source of splurging—eBay (or, as it is affectionately also known, AnninaBay). I bought an artisan wooden necklace of a rune found on Lappish Shaman drums. The rune is of the shaman/witch doctor, and is thought to bring both good health and fertility. I must say I'm feeling pretty healthy atm, but no, I'm not pregnant :P Whether or not it works as a talisman, I thought it a gorgeous work of art. Here's a pic:


If you click on that, it will take you to the current eBay page for the item. It wasn't bad at all; with shipping, around $13.75. The folks running the store are nice, but their descriptions are on the embellished side —there is no "fertility god" in the mythology. My guess is that they came up with that from the Native American Kokopelli myth, Kokopelli being both a shaman and a fertility god. But, I'll let you know if I suddenly start expecting quadruplets.

Now, what I'd like to know from you guys is how do you reward yourselves after working hard, or succeeding in something, or just to ward off the blues? What do you do to pamper yourselves and say, "hey, you're pretty cool after all"?