We went with Sony readers and have been happy. But it depends on what you need. The Kindle has a lot more unique books available to download (even though Nook says it does; a lot of B&N's books are free Google books, which are available on other readers too). I'm betting that B&N will catch up with Amazon at some point in its available content, and then I think the Nook will be better, because I like its design better. We went with Sony because it's easy to put library books on it, and it's easier to pick them up on craigslist because they've been out longer (at least, longer than the Nook, which also easily uses library books), so you can get them cheaper. I also really like the design of the Sony Readers. I know a lot of people who are happy with the 500/505 models. We have a 300 and a 600 and like both. Personally, we haven't seen a need for wireless capability in a reader. I'm hopeful that Amazon will make its Kindle-format books available for other readers soon, especially since they will be available on the iPad. If you just want a dedicated reader, the iPad is a lot more expensive than these other three basic choices (unless you want a Kindle DX, but even then, the iPad would cost more than $499 to do the same things the DX does) and it doesn't use e-ink. But it does a lot of things the readers don't, so it can be a good choice.

Mine's a mandala my husband designed. I also made it into a quilt that's hanging on our wall. There's quite a bit of symbolism in it.

This was an easy week because we're eating with friends twice. The other nights we're having crockpot lasagne, an Asian-style vegetable soup, fish baked in tahini, koshary, and market noodles. With our friends we'll be having a baked potato fest and laghman and plov.

Could you fit a twin-size bed right next to your king bed? Then the little one could sleep on that bed and not disturb your husband, but he'd also be easy for you to get to. I know that would take up lots of space, but it wouldn't be forever. We've had similar situations here and had to come up with some creative solutions to help everyone sleep well. It's not always easy. Good luck!

This week I finished Look Me in the Eye, Ella Minnow Pea, and Daddy-Long-Legs. I'm almost finished with Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament and am also reading Dear Enemy and Sea Glass.

5 That doesn't mean that I don't love traditional books (because I do) but I think that digital books have a lot of potential and they have some major benefits over traditional books, especially for people like me who are highly mobile. For example, being able to download books in countries with few, if any, books in English available is a huge thing for me. I find that I forget that I'm reading a digital book on a good reader and it feels like I'm reading a traditional book.

From my understanding, the level of earthquake activity has been normal. We're just noticing them more. This website is interesting for keeping up on all the earthquakes going on around the world. This page on the website points out that there are on average, for example, 17 earthquakes of magnitude 7 every year. I certainly don't hear about all of those. Another example is 2007 which had 4 earthquakes that were magnitude 8 or larger, but you hardly heard anything about them, because they were in places that were not very populated. Usually there is only one of that size in a year.

This Thai recipe for noodles with bok choi is one of our favorites.

Last week I read The Year of the Flood and Look Me in the Eye. This week I'm reading Ella Minnow Pea and Jehovah and the World of the Old Testment.

We go geocaching on Fridays quite often. We still do some regular schoolwork too, but geocaching is the main thing we do.

Here's the recipe I use for hand-stretched noodles, except I usually use whole wheat flour for half the flour. I'd prefer to use all whole wheat, but then the noodles don't stretch very well. All white is best for stretching. There's nothing particularly distinctive about the recipe, but, like everywhere, Central Asians have their own way of preparing and serving noodles. I've never made anything thing like reshteh. I do know kashk, although I've never used it personally, or its many variations.

I make a lot of Central Asian noodles. One time we had about 10 people in the kitchen stretching noodles. That was a delicious meal. We do gnocchi too. My husband picked up the tradition of eating gnocchi on the 29th of each month (well, not this month) when he lived in Uruguay. I've made lots of ghee and lots of homemade butter, but I've never made ghee from homemade butter. I've got to try that. Unfortunately, I don't have a food processor right now. Noodles are a lot easier with one.

The only book I finished this week was Samurai Shortstop. I'm working on The Year of the Flood and Jehovah and the Old Testament World.

We'll be sitting down to this pulao from Pakistan in about 30 minutes. I always make the variation at the end using garbanzo beans. We'll have a tomato-cucumber raita with it.

I read Catcher in the Rye and finished The History of the Medieval World. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to read next. Maybe I'll reread Persuasion.

It took me a long time to come up with lots of meals that we like that aren't too expensive. Breakfast is usually oatmeal or another whole-grain cereal, toast with eggs, or muffins. Lunch is macaroni and cheese with plain yogurt, rice, or leftovers. I have a list of what I make for dinner here. Vegetables or fruit and rice usually rounds out dinner. Learning how to cook meals from a variety of countries has been really helpful. Rice has become an important staple here. I do ration some food, like milk and cheese and fish. We would all happily eat twice as much of each of those if we could afford it. I would also be happy to eat organic produce, but I figure that eating a lot of produce is better than eating a little organic produce. Produce was a big problem in our budget until I found a little hole-in-the-wall produce stand that I can walk to. I don't buy much out-of-season produce. I think that may be one of the biggest things that saves us money on produce. We'd all love to eat mangoes and papaya and strawberries in February, but it doesn't make sense when oranges and grapefruit are so much cheaper right now. I also have a very small garden that helps with some of the produce costs. We tend to eat more vegetables that fruit, which I think is often a little cheaper. Seattle doesn't have many (any) decent inexpensive grocery stores, but I do drive a bit to one 4 times a year to stock up. They have an amazing bulk section where I can get almost everything I need, from red lentils to freshly ground peanut butter. Everything else is cheaper there too. The rest of my bulk food comes from LDS canneries. I usually just buy milk and eggs at the local grocery store, and they're usually on sale. Since we eat a lot of international food, I also go to the international district often because everything is so much cheaper there than at a regular store. I think it takes a lot of time and effort to cut a grocery budget, but once it's done, it's not too hard to keep up.

That's what bugged me. We live about 2 hours from Vancouver, but we couldn't watch the opening ceremony until three hours after it started.

$300/month for a family of five (two parents and three sons, 10, 9, and 2). This is the most we have ever spent on food, but we live in Seattle right now, which is a fairly expensive city. We are on a very small budget this year. I do not buy organic, but instead buy my produce from a local seller (I generally prefer local to organic). I rely on an inexpensive grocery store where I can buy bulk products. We never eat out and I cook everything from scratch. I could technically spend less, but that would be hard on our children.

I loved it. But I find people have strong opinions about it.

Here are my reviews (or at least thoughts) of the ones I've read. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Funny in Farsi Water for Elephants March Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

I read a lot about Central Asia, and I always wonder what people who don't read a lot about it think when they do. I agree that pictures would have been good. Thanks!

I didn't really like Three Cups of Tea- I thought the book itself wasn't great. I did like the young readers edition better. It wasn't necessarily better written, but it simply told Greg Mortenson's very interesting story. I liked his second book, Stones into Schools much better.

Same here. I nearly always walk to the library. I think I've driven there twice in the past year.

What did you think of this one?

I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Artemis Fowl. Next up is Catcher in the Rye. I haven't decided yet what I'll read after that.