All the windows of my heart I open to the day. - John Greenleaf Whittier

Last night H and I watched “Cider House Rules.” It is my favorite of John Irving’s books. I almost didn’t want to watch it as you know how often a great book can be turned into an abysmal movie (“Possession,” anyone?) But the movie was wonderful. Tobey Maguire was wonderful. All the actors were wonderful. I like Paul Rudd, and Charlize Theron, and Michael Caine. The script was wonderful. The whole movie was just wonderful and thoughtful and sensitive and not melodramatic or sappy in anyway. (There is a great review here, by Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek.) Also, I am now madly in love with Tobey Maguire. Or maybe I am actually in love with Homer Wells.

CHR is one of only two films I have ever seen that were as good as the book they were made from – and the other is “The World According to Garp.” (BB trivia: The only movie BETTER than its book was “Bridget Jones’ Diary.”)

I generally don’t see movies of books I love as it is almost always a mistake. Again, “Possession,” anyone? Or “Prince of Tides”? Or “The Great Santini”?

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I finished Frindle by Andrew Clements in about an hour and a half the other day. Clever concept (a boy invents a new word for “pen”) but not particularly well-developed. And the character of the English teacher, Mrs. Granger, was most interesting and she totally got glossed over. She deserved her own book.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, on the other hand, was most thoughtfully and sensitively developed. I like the idea of reading it to a class over the course of a school year, as one of the commenters last week (Cari, maybe?) mentioned, because the suspense and momentum built throughout the book add to its power.

I will start Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart tonight. And I have the new issue of Newsweek, and the new issue of House and Garden to read this weekend.

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I took the boys to the playground yesterday afternoon and decided immediately thereafter to follow Angela’s (from Fluid Pudding) advice and restrict my children’s toys to one banana slice – preferably VERY ripe – apiece. The two older boys were spinning on the Puke Machine (you know, that little merry-go-round thingey – why, what do YOU call it?) and Segundo of course fell off twice, was dragged around by his arm at least once, and hit his head twice, once on the pipes you are supposed to hold onto and once on the actual deck of the thing AFTER he fell off. I endured all this before I finally got tired of watching, heart in my mouth, and waiting for him to be decapitated by the damn thing. I hauled him off it, telling him – oh, the tantrum that ensued – that he was just too little (and his mama is just too overprotective and neurotic) to play on that particular piece of playground equipment.

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I ate a chocolate bar for breakfast this morning.
And then I went out for a walk/run (twenty minutes, doing one minute running, one minute walking…and so on. Nice easy way to build back up.)
Then I stopped at the coffee shop for an iced latte.
Then I climbed out on the porch roof and worked on our windows.
Fortunately I only had to recaulk in a few places (I did most of the recaulking the summer before I got pregnant with Terzo) and the paint worked as primer since I had to use two, and in some places three, coats to cover the brown.

Here is what the windows looked like:


Here is what the finished windows look like:


On the first floor, I painted the actual window mullions and frame olive green, but as we are replacing some of the second-floor windows with vinyl windows, and you can’t paint vinyl, I figured it’s best for them to be consistent. The front windows that look out onto the porch, and the porch railings and columns, will be picked out in olive, and the front door is olive – or at least it is until I have time to strip it down to the oak – but everything else will just get a nice clean coat of gloss white. The outside of the house is shaping up – thank God – as I had to call the plumber today for the inside. The main pipe beyond the laundry tub is simply rusted through. I ran some laundry as the underwear situation was growing dire, and the soapy water just gushed out of this gaping hole in the 4-inch main pipe and its rust. I am afraid to tackle it myself as I don’t know where the 4-inch pipe goes after it descends into our basement floor. And I really have no wish to find out, frankly. I just wish my soapy water to go there, wherever it is, and stop pouring out onto the basement floor.

All I really want is some clean underwear.

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List Friday, courtesy of Pomegranates and Paper

This weeks' theme: Your Top Ten Hobby Supplies (although I don't have ten...)

Here we go:

• Chocolate
  
• Ice cream
  
• A big spoon
  
• My bed or at least a comfy sofa
  
• Bottle of seltzer water
  
• A good book