weekend warrior

Yesterday at the Target--before our car wouldn't start in the parking lot--Catcher and I were given the task of picking up some Claritan for Alex since he is suffering from seasonal nasal allergies. Never having been an allergy sufferer myself, I was perplexed in the allergy analgesic drug aisle and didn't know whether I should go with the Claritan gel caps or the regular Claritan or maybe try Zyrtec, so I went with what made the most sense: the Claritan D that you have to ask for because they keep it behind the pharmacy counter. There must be a reason they hide it back there, right? I figured out that reason yesterday afternoon. Call me naive, but there must be uppers in those things or something, because I have never seen Alex so...motivated. The focus of the day became that unsightly HVAC unit, and Alex was determined to make it shine. Unfortunately, these pictures don't really do the job justice. It looks much better (albeit still a bit sketchy) in person.

Here's a look at the HVAC unit "before" (with a little Catcher in the background raking some stray leaves).

A work in progress: Alex plots out the planting of the plants (or "Christmas trees" as Catcher referred to them). And then the boys hard at work (below).

The end result. The trees are cute, and I hope they distract potential homebuyers from the atrocity that lurks behind. I wish I was able to capture Alex's heightened work ethic from the day, which caused him to not eat a thing until 8:30pm when I poked my head outside the front door and asked him if he was going to eat dinner ("Oh, yeah," he replied with the wild-eyed look of child who just drank a 2-liter of Coke, "I'll be right in!"). Actually, I think I can show you Alex's energy from the day as personified through this two year-old (*disclaimer: Catcher was not given a 2-liter of Coke prior to these pictures).