1 Can he read your blog from the Google cache? Like this. Then click on "Cached".

2 How funny you should mention Encyclopedia Brown.  I know a little redhead who will very much enjoy reading about EB once Santa makes a stop this year.

3 Guard Wife: I just LOVE those books.  Love them.  To this day I can't hear about the Battle of Bull Run or cut my fingernails after a shower without thinking of good old Encyclopedia Brown.  I also loved The Great Brain series, fwiw.

4 There's always the comic book option. Eight in one day? Easy.

I've never read an Encylopedia Brown or Great Brain book. I thought the latter was also a mystery series but I just learned from the Wikipedia article that the series was something else that seems more complex - like a male Little House on the Prairie?

5 You would not believe what I have been reading. I had knee surgery a month ago, on my good knee, not the biggy total knee replacement but a whole lot more painful than I expected. And the physical therapy almost has done me in, so I have spent a lot of time on heating pads or sitting in front of the computer.
Anyway, my sister rounded up about 20 of the Amish women books, several different authors, so that is what I have been reading. Its kind of like the Bobbsey twins turn into Amish romances.  A nice mind candy bunch of books.  Also a lot of time online.
Okay everybody, don't let me hear you snicker.

6 Ouch, Ruth. I mean your surgery and its aftermath, not your choice of reading.

Growing up in Hawaii and having studied and taught at West Coast universities, I had no idea those Amish romance books even existed until I moved to New Jersey where Wal-Mart and the local supermarket stock tons of them on racks far from, um, reading material with more technology. Are those books easy to find in Texas? I wonder what their pattern of distribution is.

7 Amritas,
The Danish woman who cleans for me saw them today and picked them up to ask about them because she saw them in Fredericksburg Tx last week in an Amish store.  It is a German tourist town. I've heard the Amish women love them.  I actually looked one author up on her website.
I have never noticed them because I  never looked for them, but my sister found some of them in Walmart here in our town of Rockport, TX.  She also told me they have them in their church library.  They may be in their teens section.
The ones I found at the library were in adult fiction and looked very used.  They are in paperback. They are a little like the continued novels I used to see in Redbook magazine as a girl. Each book is a continuation of the previous and leaves you in a light suspense. They also take a little longer than two hours to read, depending on length.  I read pretty fast, and skim a lot on some books .

8

I'm so happy to have a baby update!  I've been wondering how things are going.  I'm so excited your husband might get to be there for the birth!!!  I'm keeping my fingers crossed it works out. Just keep reminding her she needs to wait for daddy!

I have nothing to add to the book discussion. It seems I never have time to read anymore. : (  One of these days!

9

Haven't commented in a while, but I still check in every day.  I'm SO GLAD to hear that your husband may be there for the delivery!!!

I've been on quite a reading binge lately, after quite a long hiatis from books.  I went through the entire 'Clan of the Cave Bear' series in about 6 weeks.  I had read the first two about 20 years ago, and now all five.  Ms. Jean Auel had BETTER be writing number six, 'cause I'm just dying to know what happens next!!  She can't leave me hanging like that!

Then I went back to another author I had read years ago and really enjoyed:  Chaim Potok.  Looking him up in the library computer, I saw there was a sequel to a book I read before, so I checked them both out:  My Name is Asher Lev, and The Gift of Asher Lev.  Both excellent reads.  He writes mostly about Hasidic Jews in modern times in all of his books.  These two are about a young man whose parents are heavily involved in the higher levels, but he is a driven artist who sometimes crosses the line of what is 'acceptable' in their religion.  Fascinating to read of a culture I know next to nothing about.  Excellent author--his first book was The Chosen, also very good.

I'm planning on starting For Whom the Bell Tolls today.  I don't believe I've ever read any Hemmingway before, and feel somewhat less of an American because of it.

Enjoy the third trimester!!  Are you waddeling yet? ;o)

10 Marge -- On a stiff day, I walk like an emperor penguin.

11 Sarah - I had been wondering how you were feeling so I am glad you updated us. ALSO, so happy to hear your husband will potentially be home for your babys arrival. Did you get those belly pics taken yet?

12

 . . .emperor penguin *snorfle*

Have you and your husband picked a name yet?  If you have, are you going to share it, or give her a pseudonym?  (Like John Elway Baby!)

13 ditto the snorfle.... I've heard of waddling like a duck, and done so in my time, but a penquin.....  funny!  You are having such a wonderful, normal pregnancy and it's so great.

14 Ruth,

Thanks for the information. I had been assuming Amish romances were only sold in the northeastern US, so I was surprised they were available in Texas.

Sarah walks like an empress penguin!

15 I used to play a game with the Captain before she was born:  I'd push on her foot and she'd push back.  Always loved it.  Once she was born, I'd rub the bottoms of her feet and tell her that it was the very first part of her that I "met".  I still do it sometimes I change her.  That part of your post definitely made me smile.  So glad you're starting to enjoy yourself, and that your husband should be back in time.  Here's hoping you're the typical first timer who goes late! 

16 Amritas,
There are a lot of Amish and Mennonite colonies in Texas, I know some right here in South Texas. They sell at our local farmer's market;  wonderful baked goods and best cherry pies ever.  And the wife of the man who actually is here the most, told me he always helps her with the baking! Her name is Ruth, also. They usually come to our local herb festival I help put on. I just didn't know they had romance novels.

17 that is fantastic news!!! now at least can you email him photos so he can get belly updates? you can even sharpie your belly "foot" "head" ... lol

18 On a technical workaround note, if your site software has some way to enable full RSS feeds (rather than the first x number of characters, which it does currently), then your husband could use Google Reader or another RSS reader to read your blog. Pretty much no one blocks Google (even the Army), so this is my primary workaround in such situations. Sig