Random.

Two weeks from today and the kids will be back in school!  And I have not even gotten into my summer rhythm yet.  But at this point, what's the point?  Ha!  In two weeks I will be in school mode and my rhythm will be set. Here's a quick list of things that have been happening over here lately...

1. Peter is still enjoying football even though they now have pads and are tackling and it is very hot.  I am very glad about this.  I'm not going to lie - I thought as soon as it got hard, he would want to quit but nope - he seems to be loving it even more.  He goes to practice early, I don't have to remind him about anything football relate, there's no cajoling like there was with swim practice or even track practice this last season.  (I'm still praying on the daily that he doesn't get hurt...)

2. The kids got their schedules last week and Sarah freaked out a bit when none of her besties were in her lunch period or in her pottery class (they were planning to all take it together).  But some people have made some schedule changes due to other issues and one of her friends is in pottery with her now and another friend is in her lunch so things are looking up.  Peter didn't mention a thing about his schedule so I'm assuming he's happy with it.  Or most likely since he's a boy didn't bother texting all his friends to see who had what lunch or what class.

3. Dan was in Ireland last week and made it back on Saturday evening without having to drive home from Newark this time!  I love it when air travel works like it's supposed to work.

4.I've been making a chicken, pepper and onion stir-fry dish lately that everyone has been enjoying.  When I made it last week  Peter suggested that it should have a white sauce with it like they serve at the Japanese streak houses.  So, when I made it this week, I whipped up this white sauce.  It was really good!  The only thing I did differently from this recipe was to add a dash of salt.  Now whenever I do the stir-fry I will be making this to go with it.

5.Last night for dinner I made the Pioneer Woman's Pork Carnitas.  It is very similar to the street tacos I've been making but it uses pork instead of beef.  Her recipe calls for pork shoulder but I could only find pork butt so that's what I used.  They were really good and I will make these again.  I did do the browning step that she did but I may not do that next time - the browning took a long time and I'm not sure it added that much extra flavor.  The meat was really tender and Dan, who doesn't typically like pork said, "These are good even though I don't usually like pork."  So, there's that!

6. A couple of weeks ago three tornadoes touched down on  Cape Cod.  I think only two or three other times in recorded history a tornado has hit on the Cape prior to this. One of them was very near our house. Luckily our little house  sustained no damage other than some broken tree limbs.

7. Dan's sunflowers got off to a slow start this year but are the tallest they've ever been...

8.  Our garden is still producing tomatoes and I will be making another batch of spaghetti sauce this morning.

9.  I took Sarah shopping yesterday for school pants and we got lucky at the first store.  Still looking for shoes though.  She has two specific pairs in mind and we were only able to find one.  The other pair we will order online since we were able to try the shoe on in the wrong color so at least we will know the correct size to order.

10.  I still need to get Peter to the store to shop for his new shoes.  That will be like pulling teeth.

11.  Neither one of the kids is done with their summer work yet and did I mention, school starts in two weeks?  Neither one of them is too concerned so I guess I shouldn't be either.  I, after all, have completed both the 10th and 11th grades so....

12. In other exciting news, I descaled the Kuerig this week after Dan said that his coffee wasn't tasting as strong as normal.  After I descaled it, the flow was much thicker.  He never commented if it tasted better or not but at least the coffee maker is clean now.

13.  Sarah wanted a chair in her room.  I know I've mentioned before how tiny the kids rooms are and there was really no space for a chair.  But I agreed that something needed to be done in that room.  The book shelf was too big for the room so that got moved out and she never used the desk that was in there.  It was basically acting as a junk holder.  You know how people get treadmills and put them in their bedrooms and never use them so they become landing spots for junk and hanging spots for clothes?  Well, that's what had happened to Sarah's desk. Junk just kept getting piled up on it.  So out that went.  And it felt so much better in there - just bygetting rid of two pieces of furniture that really weren't serving their purpose.

Then we went to Home Goods and found the cutest pink chair.  Now we just need to get a rug for the room and she is all set.  The room feels bigger and more open (even though it is tiny) and she feels less claustrophobic due to all the stacks of stuff being out of there.  The walls are light pink even though they look white in this picture and her bedspread is navy and the other accents around the room are gold. We are both happy with how it turned out.

We were in Home Goods on Sunday to look for this chair and Dan is actually the one that found it.  After we agreed that it was the perfect chair, he stood beside it while Sarah and I shopped for that cute little gold side table.  Apparently someone came up while he was standing there and was interested in it and he had to tell them NOPE!  As soon as he told me that, I grabbed an employee and we got the thing up to the front and paid for it.  Didn't want to risk losing this chair!  :)

And with that, it's time to process some tomatoes for spaghetti sauce.  I can't guarantee when I'll post again but I can guarantee that when I do, it will also be a bunch of random just like this list...:)