I have to admit, it's kind of nice to have Anna home early on Monday.  In the beginning of the year I thought it was just weird and kind of annoying to have a different schedule one day of the week.  But now that the busy-ness has set in, it's nice to just have her home and be able to hang out and do stuff.  It was nothing special today - we just went to a playground and they played for awhile - but I truly don't get to spend those long blocks of time with her.  On a normal day, she'll come home and we'll chat for a few minutes, and then she's off to catch up on her playing and I have to work on dinner.  A few evenings a week are busy, but even if she's home, she plays with John while I do dishes, and then she goes to bed.  On the weekends, it seems like things have just been busy lately; I guess we're usually together (like going to events or to family members' houses) but it's not the same thing as just having a down afternoon to relax in.  We'll be getting together with my mom every other week on Monday afternoons so that Anna can see her, but I'm going to try to not schedule anything for the other Mondays so that we can have a relaxing day.

Mondays are nice for me also in that there's nothing on my cleaning schedule!  I know that means I should probably do one of those oft-neglected chores, like cleaning baseboards, but it's kind of nice to have a day off from it.  I also didn't do any baking today either (except for a quick batch of whole wheat blueberry muffins for dessert, but that was seriously about 5 minutes), so it was calm.  What we did do is errands this morning.  By the end, Molly was basically begging to go home.  Ha!

First we had to go get John's car from the shop; the stupid water pump was leaking so we had to have that replaced.  $650 later we have the car back.  I hate that!  I shouldn't complain too much - that car has been very good to us, and with 140K miles on it still runs really well.  Anyway, then we went to Target to look for some tights for the girls...yeah, I can tell I waited too long to do that.  They had barely any selection at all.  Oops.  Guess we'll have to keep looking.  Then CVS to pick up my pictures that I had printed, except they hadn't arrived yet (I did it online and I guess that location can't print them or something, so they had to be printed elsewhere and then shipped).  Then Whole Foods to get red lentils (and chestnuts, but when it turned out that they were going to cost me about $16 to get the proper amount, I dropped that idea and decided I would just substitute walnuts in the recipe).  Then Michael's to get some stuff for Anna's Halloween costume (a fairy) and picture frames (for the pix that CVS didn't have).  We were supposed to go to Home Depot to get a replacement part for our ceiling fan (the stupid light chain was pulled completely off and there's no way to turn on the light now) but, like I said, Molly really wanted to go home and I was getting kind of hungry anyway.  Yeah, another thing I waited too long for? Seasonal flu shots. Oops.  Walgreens, Target, and CVS were all out.  I tried calling our doctor, but I swear I was getting a busy signal every time I called.  That has me a little concerned - are there a whole bunch of sick people calling for appointments and then going, because I don't want to go there just so that we can get sick.  I'm going to keep calling around.

Fairfax County is running clinics this weekend to vaccinate children for H1N1 and we're going to do that.  I was a little nervous about it at first, but I've come to terms with it and we're just going to do it.  Even though the girls don't have underlying health concerns, the potential for serious complications just frightens me too much to ignore it and hope they don't get it.  I want to get it too, but it sounds like it will be available for the general population.

I also found out that due to tremendous budget difficulties, Fairfax County is considering chopping all sorts of services at the schools next year, including full-day kindergarten!  Seriously?!  I would be so disappointed.  I mean, I know, it wouldn't kill me to have Molly home for half the day, but I was thinking of all the great things I could get done in the 7 hours both girls would be gone.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  I bet it will be cut though - it's a serious budget shortfall they're facing.

I found this great recipe (courtesy of moneysavingmom.com) for pumpkin pie oatmeal - I think I'm going to make it tomorrow morning, subbing walnuts in for pecans since we don't have any at the moment.  Sounds delish, doesn't it?