It had been around six years since I had properly bought anything new for my kitchen, which sounds slightly alarming when written down. Six years is long enough for a child to start school. Apparently, it is also how long I can look at perfectly functional kitchen appliances and think, Well, it still works, before finally admitting that perhaps I am allowed to replace things without waiting for them to produce smoke.

For years, that was how I approached most things at home. If it worked, it stayed. If it looked slightly tired but continued performing its assigned duty, it had job security. There were always more important things to spend money on: work, responsibilities, family, bills, travel, whatever unexpected expense had decided it was my turn that month. Home became the place I returned to after dealing with everything else rather than something I thought much about improving.

Then, apparently, I looked around my kitchen and decided we had suffered enough.

The cream retro microwave was the first proper upgrade, and I loved it almost immediately. This was unusual because I do not normally form emotional attachments to machines whose principal achievement is reheating leftovers. But it was cream, slightly vintage-looking and considerably prettier than something designed to make yesterday’s dinner hot again had any right to be. For once, I had chosen an appliance partly because I liked looking at it. That felt strangely indulgent after years of buying things according to the very sophisticated criteria of: Does it work? Is it reasonably priced? Good. Done.

I kept looking at the microwave after putting it on the counter, which is perhaps evidence that I need more excitement in my life.

Then came the rice cooker, and this one required far less justification. I am Filipino. A rice cooker is not really a kitchen accessory. It is practically infrastructure. Rice accompanies breakfast, lunch, dinner and occasionally whatever meal exists between those three. There is something reassuring about hearing the click when the cooker switches from cook to warm and knowing that at least one part of dinner has organised itself without requiring further supervision.

There is also something wonderfully familiar about opening a rice cooker and being hit by that little cloud of steam. Of all the things I have adapted to since moving to Britain, my relationship with rice has remained remarkably resistant to cultural integration. I may discuss the weather now. I may own multiple winter coats. I may have developed an appreciation for a proper cup of tea. But there are meals where my brain still looks at the plate and asks, Where is the rice?.

The kettle was a much more British development. Before moving here, I understood kettles. After living in Britain, I understood the importance of kettles. There is a difference. A kettle here seems to function as kitchen equipment, emotional support and emergency response. Tired? Put the kettle on. Visitor? Put the kettle on. Bad shift? Kettle. Good news? Kettle. Mild inconvenience? This clearly requires boiling water.

My Philips kettle now earns its place on the counter. Before an early shift, after a late one, during a day off when I have absolutely no intention of becoming productive yet—it is there. Coffee, tea, something warm while I stare into space and negotiate with myself about what needs doing next. Nurses become very good at functioning at speed, so I have come to appreciate the small domestic rituals that require almost nothing from me except waiting for water to boil.

The toaster joined the collection too. There is very little philosophical insight to offer about a toaster, despite my best efforts as a blogger. It makes toast. It does this successfully. I am pleased with it. Sometimes an appliance should be allowed to fulfil its destiny without becoming a metaphor for personal growth.

Although I will admit that a decent piece of toast on a morning when you have somewhere to be can improve international relations.

Even the bathroom received attention with a new bin and brush set, which may be the least glamorous sentence I have ever published on this blog. Nobody dreams of reaching adulthood so they can become excited about coordinated bathroom accessories, yet here we are. I put them in place, stood back and thought, Oh, that actually looks better.

This is apparently adulthood: voluntarily buying a bathroom bin and then admiring it.

The skincare portion of the haul made slightly more sense aesthetically. I bought a rice water cleanser, because apparently rice was determined to feature in multiple departments of this order, and some pimple patches for those charming occasions when my skin decides to produce a surprise guest immediately before I need to go somewhere. I appreciate pimple patches because they are refreshingly straightforward. There is a spot. You put a tiny sticker on it. Nobody needs a twelve-step strategic meeting.

I also bought magnesium, which was perhaps the most grown-up item in the entire haul because I bought it while thinking about rest and looking after myself rather than whether the packaging would look nice on the counter. Years of nursing shifts have given my sleeping pattern enough plot twists already. Anything related to rest now gets my attention.

Once everything had been unpacked, the kitchen looked different. So did the bathroom. There were cardboard boxes everywhere, packaging that needed sorting and that familiar post-delivery moment when you realise buying things online is significantly easier than figuring out what to do with the boxes afterwards.

But I was happy.

Not because I had suddenly transformed my home into something from an interiors magazine. I certainly had not. It was still my kitchen, with ordinary things on the counter and all the evidence that actual people live there. The difference was that I had finally paid attention to it.

For a long time, I had been very good at spending money where it was necessary and postponing things that were simply nice to have. There was always another priority. I became accustomed to telling myself, Maybe later. Later is a useful word because it sounds responsible while making absolutely no appointment with the calendar.

This time, later finally turned up.

That is probably why a microwave, rice cooker, kettle and toaster ended up meaning slightly more to me than their product descriptions suggested they should. They marked a period of my life when I could look around the place I came home to and decide that usefulness did not have to be the only standard. I could choose the cream microwave because I thought it was pretty. I could replace something before its final mechanical breath. I could make the kitchen nicer simply because I spend part of my life there.

There was satisfaction in that which I had not expected.

Perhaps we underestimate how much of a life is made inside these very ordinary spaces. We remember promotions, holidays, birthdays and the obvious milestones, but much of adulthood happens beside a kettle waiting to boil. It happens while making rice after work, standing half-awake beside the toaster before an early shift, washing your face at the end of a long day or opening the fridge several times as though new food might materialise if you remain optimistic enough.

My Amazon haul was hardly a dramatic life event. Nobody needs to alert the historians. In a few years, the microwave will simply be the microwave and the kettle will have boiled water thousands of times without receiving the recognition it deserves.

But right now, I enjoy seeing them there.

Six years ago, I was building a very different version of my life. There were bigger things demanding my attention, and making the kitchen prettier understandably sat somewhere near the bottom of the list. Now I can buy a cream microwave because I like the way it looks, cook rice in a proper rice cooker, make coffee from my new kettle and admire a bathroom bin with an enthusiasm that would deeply confuse my younger self.

I think she would laugh at me. Then again, she would probably be pleased too. Because perhaps one sign that a life has settled is that you finally have enough room in it to care about the toaster.

Apparently, settling in required a new microwave,
Anj ☕