Best birthday presents ever!

Once back to the apartment, it was time for the important stuff -- namely, celebrating my birthday!

The kids gave me these wonderful Henry VIII and Wives matryoshki dolls, the perfect souvenir of our trip to London. David has an actual Russian matryoshki set he got from a trip to Moscow during his junior year abroad, and the kids ask to play with them every so often. If they ask to play with my new set, they will hear an emphatic and unapologetic "No!".

And then my wonderful husband handed me another gift. Something was wrapped up in a soft brown microsuede material. Wait, that wasn't just any piece of material. It was a new cover for my body pillow! Hooray! I have used a body pillow since it was recommended in so many pregnancy articles/books and I've now become quite dependent on mine for a good night's sleep. But the pillow cover had fallen apart recently and I couldn't find a cover in Germany. Grandma and Grandpa brought this one from the U.S. When you live abroad, you wouldn't believe how happy receiving things like a new body pillow cover can make you.

What was this? The pillow cover was wrapped around something. I unwrapped a black box and couldn't believe my eyes. Upon seeing my gift, my first reaction was to say to my husband, "You, you.....you idiot!" What inspired such words of love?

A new Kindle, the Amazon.com e-reader that allows you to download books, store them and read them off this small device. It was the perfect gift.

Back home in Atlanta, I did a good amount of reading, but TV still took up a good deal of my time. Here in Germany, I've broken the TV habit and have been devouring books. The only problem is finding books to read. My friend Kathy has been so generous sharing American books and magazines with me, and if I was desperate, I could always find a few English-language paperbacks at the mall, though they cost a pretty penny. I just wasn't reading books that were of my own choosing, books that really peaked my interest when I read about them on-line; instead, I was reading books that were there (and thank God they were or I would have gone crazy).

Once I heard about the Kindle and it's competitors, I said to David more than once, "You know, if we were staying here longer, I would get an e-reader. It would pay for itself eventually and you could read any book you wanted, just with the push of a button. No waiting for books to be shipped from the U.S. or for a colleague to bring them over on a business trip, and no more paying too much for an English-language book at a German bookstore." But I figured, we would be moving home next summer and then I would go back to checking books out of the library. I could live without an e-reader. That was where the name-calling of my husband came from. I was thinking, "This is exactly what I want, but don't need. Why would you spend money on this?" But I quickly changed my thinking to, "I should appreciate the truly thoughtful gesture."

But now I have a Kindle and it is a true joy. Many classics are free (their copyrights run out), buying books is cheaper than buying a new release at the store and it can hold 1,500 books. It's comfortable in your hand and turning the page with a click of a button makes for fast reading. You can also subscribe to newspapers and magazines, but books will be enough for now. And a bonus: when you shut the Kindle off, a sketch of a famous author or a famous etching appears on the screen.