Gratitude is what I am feeling as I start out Thanksgiving week 2023.

I am grateful first and foremost for my continuing health after a bad scare last year with 2 weeks spent in the hospital, and for the continuing health and well being of my Mom, my brother and his family.

I am blessed with a wonderful brother and sister - in - law, but they don’t like me to share pics of them online. They have made many wonderful moments of my life possible for me.

I am truly grateful for their generosity and care. Both of them are great cooks and I am looking forward to spending Thanksgiving day at their home as I always do. I am also blessed with 3 great nephews, all of whom are also healthy and thriving.

Luckily my Mom doesn’t mind her pic being shared online. Her name is Marilyn and she’s 93 years young. This pic was taken in November 2023, just a few weeks ago when we were out shopping together.

Secondly, I am grateful for my interior designer clients this year. If you are one of them, thank you so much for trusting me with your business. I so appreciate you.

[ Note: If you’re one of them, and you’re reading this, and you want me to make public that you’re a client or have been this year and are okay with me sharing that in this post > send me an email. I’d love to include you! ]

Next, I am grateful for my close friends and colleagues, so many of whom I’ve known now for many, many years and many more whom I’ve gotten to know well after first meeting them in my private Facebook Group community for interior designers, Design Wealth, which has been in existence for 8 years now.

Last year, I live interviewed 7 friends who have been long time members on various aspects of the interior design business and wrote posts with my top takeaways from each interview.

Each one of these design luminaries shared SUCH HELPFUL information, and I gathered all of the posts into one post for you, here.

I encourage you to come back, after you’re finished reading this post, and read each of those posts for loads of EXTREMELY USEFUL free tips for your businesses in 2024, from these well known and very generous members of the #designwealthcommunity.

To each of you in this image, know how appreciative and grateful I am for your kindness, generosity, and friendship. I am wishing each of you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Follow each one on IG here:

Jessica Duce: https://www.instagram.com/jducedesign | https://www.instagram.com/vrdsummit | https://www.instagram.com/vacationrentaldesigners

Carla Aston: https://www.instagram.com/carlaaston
Robin Baron: https://www.instagram.com/robinbaronofficial
Jennifer Hyman: https://www.instagram.com/hymanhomeandinteriors
Laura Muller: https://www.instagram.com/4ptdesignbuild
Veronika Eagleson: https://www.instagram.com/designhounds | https://www.instagram.com/modenus
Laura Umansky: https://www.instagram.com/lauraudesigncollective | https://www.instagram.com/designdasher
Lisa Peck: https://www.instagram.com/liluinteriors | https://www.instagram.com/sylvieandmira

Here are a few more members of the Design Wealth Community that contribute their expertise to the Group. No doubt you will recognize some of these faces if you’re part of the world of interior design and home furnishings.

To each of you in this image, and especially to those five large faces in the center of this image, [ L to R, Janet Lorusso, Linda Merrill, Alisa Tarver Berry, Linda Holt and Deborah Main > thank you for being such valuable contributors of content to the Design Wealth community this year - I appreciate you! ]

[ Note: my long time real life friend Linda Holt, whom many of you know, has a special offer for Black Friday: $100.00 OFF her VERY popular Smartphone Photography Course for Designers.

If you’d like to sign up for it, use my affiliate link here. If you miss the Black Friday special, you can still sign up for it here, or take her new course, Smartphone Travel Photography [ meant for anyone ] by signing up for it here. ]

And to all approx. 1700 of you who are members now > thank you, too, for being a part of the Design Wealth Community!

Each of you is important to me and I appreciate all you do to keep the community such a positive, informative and fun place to connect and learn.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

[ Note: if you’re a full time professional interior designer reading this, and you’d like to join the Design Wealth community, please send me a Request To Join, but please be sure to answer the 4 membership questions or else I cannot review your request. Thank you! https://facebook.com/groups/designwealth. ]

Next, I am extremely grateful to the Thompson family, who made the fabulous #TTweekendretreat possible for 12 of my TX based girlfriends and I in May by underwriting the entire weekend.

We had an AMAZING time together - talking, laughing, eating and drinking our way through a fabulous Hill Country weekend! The best part of all is how strong friendships were formed between women that did not know each other before - I’m looking at you Ruthie Staalsen and Juliana Ewer!

I am also grateful that we’ve really stayed in contact throughout the rest of this year, and have seen each other at various tradeshows and events.

I wrote a post about the backstory of how this weekend retreat came to be and if you’d like to read it, it’s here.

I also wrote a recap post afterwards, with so many beautiful images, which you can read here.

There have been so many other images about this fabulous weekend shared online by everyone who attended and if you’d like to see more, search the hashtag, #TTweekendretreat on Instagram and make sure to follow everyone who attended as well as the wonderful women of the Thompson family who made it possible:

Alejandra Ochoa de Thompson , founder and Creative Director of Thompson Traders, and her daughters, Alejandra Thompson de Jordan and Samantha Thompson Lizarraga

All of my girlfriends who attended are in this picture, taken before our delicious brunch and shopping outing in Fredericksburg, TX. My very close friend, Ilse Benard, who lives here in League City where I do, is front and center in her colorful blue. [ Thank you, Ilse, for driving me back and forth! ]

In the image below, I especially love the picture of Jessica Duce, founder of the Vacation Rental Design Summit, Shea Pumarejo, principal of My Younique Designs and Shawna Marie, founder of Styleberry Creative Interiors - all wearing the new and ultra stylish sunglasses they bought while we were out shopping in Fredericksburg.

Robin Burrill, CEO of Signature Home Services in Keller, TX, in the bottom left, was recovering from knee surgery she’d had just 2 weeks prior, but she still attended and in the bottom right picture, Diane Cowen, lifestyle and architectural editor for the Houston Chronicle, is taking a selfie with Alejandra O. Thompson.

Diane just recently announced she is retiring from the Houston Chronicle [ the USA’s 5th largest paper, owned by Hearst ] and the Houston design community will come together to celebrate her on Dec. 6th at a party at the Houston Design Center at James Craig Fine Furnishings.

Where would I be without my girlfriends? I don’t know. I really don’t. They keep me laughing, uplifted and are so supportive of all I do. I am so grateful and am wishing you all a fabulous Thanksgiving!

By now, most of the regular readers of my blog know that, in June, Thompson asked me to collaborate with them on AILA, the world’s first AI designed sink, which will debut in their exhibitor space at KBIS2024 next February 2024 in Las Vegas.

We did not talk about this at all during the weekend retreat. It came as a complete surprise to me in June, via email, and I wrote a blog post about the backstory of how it came to be, here.

Next, I am thankful this year for my workshop collaborator, Annilee Waterman. Annilee has taught me so much and has been invaluable in helping our workshop attendees understand what’s possible in metaverse spaces!

In addition, Annilee is my collaborator [along with celebrity designer, Shay Geyer of IBB Design ] on my 2024 project for Dallas Market Center’s Lightovation show, the world’s first metaverse lighting #TrendHouse, to debut on Lightovation’s Interior Designer Preview Day, January 9th.

You can read all about that, here.

Annilee has designed, 3D modeled and rendered the #TrendHouse [ based on Shay’s lighting selections and interior furniture and finish selections ]. She has gone all out to make it an experience everyone will enjoy seeing through the virtual reality goggles Dallas Market Center is providing.

Sneak peeks are coming soon - it is completed - and you won’t want to miss the SPECTACULAR activation event space Dallas Market Center has planned.

[ Note: see more below about how you can attend more affordably if you’ve never been before. ]

Annilee: thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!

I also want to thank everyone who has taken our workshops this year and who has written a testimonial on the workshop page on my website here, [ looking at you, Jill Abelman ] or mentioned our workshops when they were being interviewed about their use of AI, as Autumn Pochiro, CEO of Autumn Dawn Design, did here for Business of Home.

It’s been great to have you join us. If you’re one of them, I am wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Our last workshop of the year will take place on Thursday, Dec. 7th from 2-4 CT. It’s $149.00 and if you’d like to join us, register for it by clicking here.

I’m grateful to Neil MacKenzie, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Universal Furniture, for giving me the opportunity to speak about Metaverse Spaces and AI at Universal Furniture’s Learning Center at Fall #HPMKT., in addition to giving me the opportunity to speak there in the past on different topics.

Neil underwrites so many learning opportunities that help move the design industry forward. He’s such a visionary. Neil was one of the first executives to say YES when we asked him to sponsor Seasonal Living Magazine’s Virtual Showhouse, [ the first one of these ever done ] which will be celebrating its 3rd year of existence in two weeks, on Sunday, Dec. 3rd.

Neil, if you see this, thank you again. I wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!

See all of the talks at Universal Furniture this past Fall #HPMKT, including mine, here, on Universal Furniture’s Market Events page.

Another man I’m grateful for this year [ and every year ] is Adam Japko.

Adam is the owner of Esteem Media, and the founder of the Design Influencers Conference, which I have attended for 10 of the past 11 years. I’ve been fortunate to be a speaker at it 4 times, and although I wasn’t formally speaking at the recent Pop Up held at Dallas Market Center, Adam gave me that opportunity spontaneously. He is such a generous person.

Adam: thank you for all you do for the design industry, and all you have done for me. I appreciate you and wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!

There are so many more professional friends and personal friends I am grateful for this year [and every year ], but I would be remiss not to shout out Laura Van Zeyl, who has been a genuine ride or die friend of mine now for 15+ years and has made so many things possible for me, including all the speaking I’ve done at Lightovation over the years.

Laura has held several positions with Dallas Market Center’s Lightovation tradeshow, and now she is the Vice President of Audience Development, Lighting for Lightovation.

Before she was hired by DMC, Laura was the editor in chief of Residential Lighting Magazine for 20+ years, which is what she was doing when we first met.

Noone knows more about lighting than Laura.

Laura has a wonderful offer for any designer or lighting retailer that has never attended Lightovation before and would like to attend January 2024 Lightovation, being held Jan. 10-14, with a special Interior Designer Preview Day on Jan. 9th —> two complimentary hotel nights!!

Fill out this form that goes straight to Laura to see if you qualify, here.

Laura, I wish you and Michael and your son a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Lastly, I’m grateful this year for my friends in the trade press who saw fit to name me to their 2023 People To Watch list.

Thank you so much, Designers Today!

I sincerely appreciate the recognition and acknowledgement of my work in educating our industry about the potential of AI and metaverse spaces with respect to product design and the future of digital marketing.

I wish everyone on your team a very Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s been a remarkable year, and I am truly, truly grateful to each person mentioned here.

And to all of you who show me support in so many small ways, online, every day?

Please know how much it means to me to hear from you. I wish my life was unlimited by time so I could get to know each of you at a deeper level, but since that’s not possible, know YOU are appreciated.

Have a beautiful Thanksgiving with your family and friends and I hope to see many of you at either Dallas Market Center’s Lightovation tradeshow in January or at Veronika Eagelson’s Design Hounds Changemakers Event right before the National Kitchen and Bath Association’s tradeshow at the end of February - where AILA will be unveiled in Thompson’s exhibitor space.

Leslie
https://www.instagram.com/lesliemcarothers
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesliecarothers
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