Chez Louise

First of all, I finally managed to finish all that buttermilk. I made 3 recipes' worth of chocolate cookies, which (clever as I am) happened to use up exactly the 1 3/4 cups of buttermilk we had left. Finally we're done with the buttermilk, and we have a ton of chocolate fudgy cookies today, thanks to the double recipe of Fudgies I made this evening. (Which should last until... tomorrow night probably. :-)) Ooh my tummy hurts...

Actually my brother has a good deal to do with the mysterious disappearance of cookies left unattended. Yesterday, my parents and I went to visit some showhomes in a new development in our area (more on that later), and in the hour we were gone, six cookies vapourized!

So yeah, we went to visit some showhomes in a new development, Avalon, which is near where we live. In our house we kind of have a running joke about Avalon. Probably around 4 or 5 years ago, the whole area was a swamp, a prefectly good swamp which they drained and filled in and made into a typical residential suburban-sprawl type neighbourhood. I think I mentioned it earlier. This is the development with the yuppy street names like Esprit and Chardonnay (oh pleeease...) Anyway, yesterday, on the way to the showhomes, we discovered our new favourite, aptly-named street: Aquaview Rd. The problem Avalon's been having is that, as I mentioned, it's built on what used to be swampland. It probably wasn't the most brilliant idea in the world, because now dozens of homes are having lots of water-related problems, such as majorly cracked foundations, doors that won't close, and in general, houses sinking in unusual and decidedly not-good-news ways. No wonder they're viewing a lot of aqua these days...!

Anyway, when we got to the series of showhomes, there were six of them all in a row, all in order from smallest to largest. Our house is a 3 bedroom home just under 1900 square feet. Not exactly tiny, and adequate for our family of 4, which is roughly an average-sized family nowadays. Well, with respect to those Avalon showhomes, the square footage of our house is roughly halfway between the smallest and second smallest showhome! Makes me wonder just how much "house" people really need...

We were actually not visiting the showhomes because we're looking for a new house. Instead, my parents are planning to put in hardwood to replace the dingy old pink (now brownish) carpet that's original to our 17-year-old house. Soooo, we went to the showhomes to look at what they've done with the hardwood and the decor in general. Then today, we went to flooring places to look at samples. We actually did find a sample that all three of us (my parents and I) loved, which is a miracle in itself. (Usually, Dad automatically hates anything I like. :-)) However, at $9.29 / sq.ft., it was too expensive, so the search was on for a suitable alternative. The search is still on, but we had some fun along the way.

The first place we went, a lady came in, also looking for hardwood floors. As it turns out, it's her type that makes me remember why I never ever want to be in sales. The poor salesman, I felt so sorry for him. From her, it was a constant barrage in a condescending tone you'd probably use with a delinquant teenager. "What's the best type of flooring? Can you tell me that? What's the most expensive? Canyouexplainittome? The whole house, I want the whole house in hardwood. What's the best colour? Canyoutellmethat? What about durability? Canyouexplainittome? Huh? Huh? Huh? Not once in the whole time could she shut up long enough to listen to what the guy was saying. It was almost like, "I need hardwood and I need the perfect hardwood for my house RIGHT NOW and I want you to tell me what I need so I can buy it and leave and have my house look like a designer magazine and then I can be off to bug someone else for the next thing I need to make my life perfect." The poor guy saw us quietly trying to mind our own business and rolled his eyes when he had his back to her. Then as we left the store she asked my mom where a particular road was, and as mom gave her directions, she seemed to be listening but not really, barely restrained from subjecting mom to a barrage of questions by the fact that mom's not paid to put up with this garbage. :-) As we headed out the door afterwards, we exchanged sympathetic glances with the salesman, who just shook his head, smiled and crossed himself. The poor guy. I told mom she should have given this lady directions to get far, far away from this city. ;-)

Anyway, we'll have to see how the hardwood floors turn out. I'm making progress on getting my parents to be more adventurous in their decorating, but it's a bit slow-going with Dad (bless his heart. :-)).