Busy Week

What began as a crazy week, got crazier and crazier each day....and there's still one more day left! On Tuesday, I attended another Greater Houston Homebuilders Association meeting and was delighted to be able to recognize some faces and be able to mingle with other design professionals. On Wednesday night, By Design hosted a professional women's event and all of the ladies worked so hard all week to clean and prepare the office.

We also set up some scenarios: fabrics, accessories, tiles, photos, etc. to show the women a little of what we do.

We even did some repainting!

Various publications By Design has appeared in.... Luxe, Texas Home and Living, Houston Design Source.

Me and a few of the professional women....it was an amazing group of women that are so incredibly supportive of each other and from all different professions imaginable.

There must have been a memo...because almost all of the By Design employees wore black and white! From far left, Cindy, Amber and Peggy.

The group brought in a dance instructor to teach us some......line dancing! This is Kimberly, one of By Design's interior designers having a blast!

Like Cindy told me the other night, I am definitely a big girl now! And it is definitely not as scary as I thought it would be :)

GLIACs

Well It is about time the A in A and E's Cup of Tea took an active role in this blog and so to keep people updated with what I am doing here is an overview of the GLIAC championships.

This year was extremely exciting and as time goes on, the conference gets faster. It also seems harder and harder to get both men's and women's teams to win at the same time, so instead, we switch off each year. At least that is the trend we have begun. This year was the women's year to win and they did it in spectacular fashion crushing the second place team, Grand Valley, by 118 points. One of my swimmers, Ashley St. Andrew won all of her events and even helped to win all relays she was in.

Here I am coaching Ashley through warmup. This is the fourth time the women have won the championship and all have happened in the past 5 years.

Here are the diver's playing around in between sessions and going off of the 5-meter board to pass the time.

Here is one of the many winning relays. Throughout the meet every single pool record was broken, including my 400 IM from my freshman year which, was the last time we hosted GLIACs.

Me in deep thought, at least one hopes! Coaching, while it seems quite easy is one of the most tiring jobs. I am on my feet for the entirety of the meet and barely have time to find something to eat. I have found that at the end of the day I am more tired from coaching than when I was competing. I know, it doesn't make sense.

Here is the women's team at the end of the meet celebrating their success. This is right before they jumped in the pool with their clothes on to celebrate. Unfortunately, some of them didn't have any other clothes and were forced to brave the cold outside.

All in all, it was a fun and exciting meet with many ups and downs, mostly ups though. The men's team won every single relay even despite losing our fastest sprinter Andrej. He broke his hand on the first night after smashing it into the wall on the finish.

Next on my agenda is finding a job in Houston and finishing the season out in Canton, Ohio for the NCAA championships.

Sad Day for Frisbee Lovers

Frisbee Inventor Walter Frederick Morrison Dies at 90
Saturday, February 13, 2010

He may not be the original discoverer of the flying disc, but Walter Frederick “Fred” Morrison will undoubtedly go down in history for his achievement. In the late 1950s, fledgling toy manufacturer Wham-O began selling the Frisbee, a simple plastic creation that became one of the most popular recreational products of all-time, and it was all thanks to Morrison.

After tossing around the lid of a popcorn tin in 1937, Morrison realized the joy people could have from playing with a light-weight cylindrical object. He first started selling “Flying Cake Pans” at the beach, and later developed the Whirlo-Way, which eventually morphed into the Flyin-Saucer to take advantage of America’s obsession with UFOs in the 1950s. Wham-O bought Morrison’s invention and named it the Frisbee, which went on to sell 200 million copies.

The creation of the flying disc, however, goes to William Russell Frisbie, founder of a pie-making company, at which workers in the early 20th century tossed around pie tins for fun.

http://www.allgov.com/Unusual_News/ViewNews/Frisbee_Inventor_Walter_Frederick_Morrison_Dies_at_90_100213

Superbowl Snacks

Superbowl Sunday is this weekend and while neither Adrienne or I get pumped up about the big game, we do get excited when there is a reason to bake! Adrienne found the best recipe for a football dessert..... Mini Oreo Truffle Footballs! We figured that the recipe, being only 5 steps and 4 ingredients, would be rather simple and more importantly, delicious.

The process was a little more difficult than we had imagined and our little footballs looked more like little dingleberries than sports equipment! (Notice the product placement :)

Putting on the final touches!

While we would love to take credit for the beautiful pieces of scrumptiousness, these are Bakerellas......

and these are ours!

While they might not look appetizing, they are so incredibly delicious! Enjoy!

Oreo Truffles

1 package oreo cookies (divided… use cookie including the cream center)
1 8oz. package cream cheese (softened)
white chocolate bark

1. Finely crush 7 cookies in a food processor or place them in a ziploc bag and crush into a fine consistency. Reserve for later.
2. Crush remaining cookies and stir in softened cream cheese. Use the back of a large spoon to help mash the two together.
3. Roll the mixture into 1″ balls and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet.
4. Melt chocolate as directed on the package and then dip balls into chocolate, tap off extra and set aside on wax paper covered cookie sheet to dry. You can sprinkle the tops with the 7 crushed cookies for decoration. (I usually eat mine before they make it to this stage.)
5. Once dry, refrigerate and enjoy!

Makes about 36 truffles.

Notes: I used a small cookie cutter to push the mixture through for the heart shaped truffles. Also, it helps to freeze the uncoated balls for a few minutes to keep the mixture from starting to fall apart in the melted chocolate. If this becomes a problem, dip them in the chocolate, let dry and then dip again. They are also good dipped in regular milk chocolate bark. And for an extra twist, use the mint oreo sandwich cookies.

By Design

I have been having a rough time thinking of what to post next, mostly because I have just been working a lot. Today, when I had a few minutes of free time, (which is really rare) I realized no one has seen where I work. By Design Interiors has been around since 1990! There are 5 full-time designers, assistants, a media specialist, a shipping and receiving specialist, an accountant, and a lot of fabric books.

Here's my office...and yeah! I get that big green chair! Its a bit bulky and likes to get in my way, but its too comfortable to swap out for something different.

One of the ways we organize projects is by these baskets; they'll contain all of the paperwork, drawings, fabric samples, tile samples, and anything else we could possibly need for a project. As you can see, one is so full and heavy that it just sits on the floor.

Cindy and Amber, (the women I work with) have begun a chest of drawers full of "totally awesome" fabric samples. And all of them are totally awesome. It certainly helps looking here first before we decide to search through these......

Fabric books....

and more fabric books.

There are tons of what seem like random things all over the office, finial samples (what you see above) tables, chairs, mirrors, frames, statues, paintings, hardware, rug samples, florals, pillows, furniture books, tassels, dressers, and so much more. It isn't hard to get into the creative mood when there is so much inspiration all around.

So this is me...at work!