This and that!

I had quite a productive day today, moving things along with the big clean-up/declutter. I'm trying to clean out one kitchen cupboard every day, do a bit of gardening and get at least a couple of things out the garage and at the moment I'm on a roll. The young neighbour I ended up giving my ex's fishing stuff to I saw actually loading up his small boat on Sunday heading off to the lake. When I first approached him he said he hadn't been out on the boat for ages so I guess maybe having all this brand new stuff spurred him into action!

This afternoon (I can rarely get my backside into gear in the mornings) I ran down to the tip to drop off some garden rubbish and a few other things when I got stuck behind a guy with a trailer right at the entrance. He was trying to reverse it towards the bins but his bloody trailer was all over the place. I sat there for about 10 minutes (literally) but because of his manoeuvering I couldn't get past to get into the recycling centre. It was quite embarrassing, actually, not only for him but also for me, as he was making such a pig's ear out of reversing this trailer. Eventually he went out the exit and came back in in order to let me pass so I went over to him and asked if he would like my help guiding him towards the bins! Eventually we got it there and he got out his car laughing, saying it was the first time he had driven this trailer, but I just said he was lucky he wasn't behind me trying to reverse that thing or we would still be there!

After that I dropped some more stuff off at the charity store and then went on to another large DIY place to have a look at their flooring. I asked if they had a service that could strip my flooring and reseal it and they gave me the same response as Max did - that it wouldn't look good at all! So I had a wander round and eventually asked for help from the young woman responsible for that section. I showed her pictures of my flooring and told her that I had already seen a couple of things that I might be interested in. I always tend to go for lots of colour so was immediately drawn to a mozaic-style tile that I think would look good in my kitchen, which has a colourful, marble-effect work surface but where all the cupboards are white (or at least they will be when I've finished scrubbing them)! I also picked out a pale tile which I think will  look good in the living room and entryway so the young woman told me to take the samples home with me to check how I feel about it at home. I'm thinking of going with it and when I take the samples back to her on Thursday she can arrange a date to come out and give me a quote. I've had work done by these people on several occasions and have been very happy with them, so depending on the quote I think I'll go with them and just get the darn thing done, rather than diddling around. I have money put away to buy a car in case I need to get one urgently (although not any time soon I hope), and enough money to do one of my bathrooms, so once the other bathroom is done (at which point I will definitely be broke) everything that really needs to be done will be done. The rest (I hope) will just be cosmetic and in need of elbow grease (mine). Well, I'm hoping that'll be the way it works out, of course! I know taste is very subjective, but this is what I'm leaning towards.

I'm thinking of this for the living room and entryway

For the kitchen floor (imagine all white cupboards - otherwise it's a bit "busy")!

In other news, my ex's relative that I mentioned the other day really does seem to have "flipped". He's still posting pretty offensive and/or insulting stuff on FB but the curious thing is he seems to be posting this stuff at about 3 or 4 a.m. Pennsylvania time. That seems to be his "witching hour". Unless someone steps in soon, or unless he goes too far and the authorities "step in", I don't see good things in his future any time soon!

Moving seamlessly on, on Saturday night we have our re-convened board game evening at my place, so I sent round a WhatsApp message asking who would be coming and explaining that while my place was a bit of a tip with all my furniture all over the place, it shouldn't interfere with our evening, if that was ok with everyone. Valérie offered to host at her place and then Jen piped up that they would like to host at their new apartment so we seem to have plenty of venues to choose from. I did ask Jen if she had enough tables/chairs in their new place already and she wasn't sure so it might still end up at my place, which makes more sense at the moment, I think. Maybe they can host the next one! In any case, my oldest and his wife have also said they would like to come (it will be their first time) and since Friday is André's 32nd birthday it would be nice to have them all here. I guess we'll play it by ear as to the venue!

In other news I was pretty disgusted with the comments of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, making crude remarks about the French first lady at the G7. Something to the effect that President Macron should be jealous of him, what with him (Bolsonaro) having a beautiful, much younger wife and Macron's wife being older and ugly!! Say what! Now I'm no fan of Macron or his wife but since when did it become acceptable for public figures to behave so appallingly? I know that "thing" in the White House is no reference when it comes to how to behave, but I was gratified to see that at least Macron knows how to behave in public. His response to the insult to his wife: "He said very disrespectful things about my wife. I have great respect for the Brazilian people and can only hope they soon have a president who is up to the job. What can I say?" What's all the more galling is that Bolsonaro is 27 years older than his wife, while Macron's wife is 25 years older than him. Seems that men like this feel absolutely entitled to disparage women's looks - all the while sporting a big gut, balding pâte and bad teeth! Does anyone else see the irony here?

And finally, Northern Living Allowance (sorry, I don't know your name) posted a recipe for Nanaimo bars so I made them yesterday in order to use Max and his colleagues as guinea pigs! I have to admit they were very sweet - too sweet to my taste - but I'm not sure how I could cut down on that! Oh well, at least I tried a new recipe! Tomorrow I'm going in to work to use the gym and meet up with my friend afterwards for a drink. Gotta get back in the saddle at some point I suppose, and with the weather being slightly cooler now I can't think up a good enough excuse not to go - although it's not for want of trying!