Reba, Kelly, Rachael, Kelsey and Me

Adding events to my job has been stressful, but has also has great perks. For instance, our Jazz Suite sponsors get one concert a year included in their package and as the event director I had to go! I took my niece Rachael for her birthday and when we ended up with one extra ticket, my co-worker Kelsey came along to help out.

The concert featured Reba McIntire and Kelly Clarkson. A strange combination of styles, I know, but it ended up being a very cool mix. I know Reba from my Rick's days (I had a house cleaning job with a friend who was a big country fan, so that's what we listened to)and I know Kelly's most famous hits, but there's nothing like hearing people with "real deal" voices perform live. The best part was that they didn't just take turns but both sang each other's songs.

I sat on a broken chair, messed up the seating chart and about died when Reba ended the concert with "Fancy" (that is such a terrible song) but we had a tremendously fun time!

Mistakes

"In order to do something well, we must be first willing to do it badly."

I've never seen myself as a perfectionist, but I guess in some ways I am--especially with work. This came to my attention as I recently took over our statewide events. I took it on willingly because I'd been craving a new challenge and it sounded like fun.

The first Summit went smoothly and my confidence was high. The second Summit was private labeled for the Utah Jazz to host all their sponsors. I spent many late nights and weekends unraveling all the details--thinking if I just worked hard enough, I could make it run perfectly.

It was all coming together, (well except for a near disaster a few days before when we realized I had 25 people all scheduled to golf at 3:30. Tee times? What are those?) then at 6:00 the night before the "bewitching hour" struck. I realized I'd scheduled our two speakers for the same day! I was so focused on the details, I didn't see a major error. I went to my co-worker's office and started to hyperventilate, "What do I do???"

She calmed me down and I finally got a hold of the speaker in the airport and my boss and I were able to arrange a different flight and rearrange his speaking time. Then the Jazz wanted a room to watch the game. . .Then the speaker needed to have extra av. . .Then I lost the $2,000 camera. It was just one costly problem or mistake after another.

Thankfully everyone ended up having a fantastic experience,and I learned some important lessons.

1. No matter how hard I try, I'm going to make mistakes. I need to judge the success of things by the number of good things that happened instead of the number of things that went wrong.

2. I need to be okay with depending on other people and letting them help me when I need it (my event staff, bosses, and the hotel staff saved me over and over again--they were an answer to the urgent SOS messages I kept sending to heaven.)

3. Things don't have to be perfect for me to be happy. Walking around the golf course in Park City enjoying the stunning fall colors, talking to my phenomenal co-workers, sitting in the most amazing jacuzzi ever--looking up at the stars between the clouds of rising steam--there is a lot to enjoy and be grateful for in life.

Patience

I remember when I was younger thinking that patience was one of the "lesser" Christ-like virtues--at least compared to things like faith or compassion or charity. Then in the MTC, I had a difficult time with my companion and found myself suddenly in desperate need of patience and realized that I had none.

This has turned into a lifelong theme. Some people have reoccurring trials with health or family or finances--but it seems that most of my trials have been ones of patience (I guess with a name like Sarah Elizabeth, it was inevitable). Trusting that God will have everything work together for my greatest happiness isn't necessarily the part I struggle with (though I do wonder what in the world He's doing sometimes), it's when I'm asked to sit back and do nothing--allowing things to unfold as they will that I feel internal fingernails scraping down a chalkboard.

Because I'm the type of person that loves action--to make a plan and go out and make it happen, being asked to "let go and wait" is a strange and exquisite torture. Recently, life experience has brought this up again, so if any of you have any counsel for me on how to patiently wait, I'd love your insights.

What Not To Wear

Although I almost never watch television these days, I do have one show I watch anytime I can— TLC’s “What Not To Wear.” I relate on a deep level to those girls who can’t seem to put together an outfit and are frustrated with a body that clothes just don’t seem to fit right.

So, last summer when my boss asked me and my co-worker Kelsey what kind of incentive we wanted to complete an enormous training project, I convinced Kelsey that what we really wanted a What Not To Wear shopping spree with my sister Anna acting as Stacy and Clinton.



This took a little longer than initially anticipated as we worked to get down to a
size we wanted to buy clothes for, but in April we were finally ready. I did some pre-shopping in Park City and came home completely depressed because none of the new styles looked good on me.



Enter Anna and her magic.

She’d been collecting coupons and analyzing my existing wardrobe for months, and called me one day saying the sales were on and she’d already had clothes on hold for me at the mall. I took an early lunch and met her there. As I tried on the stacks of clothes she had waiting for me and looked in the mirror, I gasped . I was stunning! She chose exactly the right styles and colors and put them together like a work of art. We’d go through stores and she would run her fingers through the racks of clothes and come up with the perfection. And she did the same thing for Kelsey.



This went on for several days. One of those days, Anna had to bring all 4 of her boys (5 and under) with her. My co-worker and I would take turns entertaining the boys in the dressing room or playing hide and seek in the shoe store while the other tried on and got the approval nod or disapproval shake from Anna. Another day, we brought our entire closets to her house, tried on every piece of clothing we owned, and she told us what we had to get rid of. I could tell that there were things she’d been dying to have me get rid of by the look of satisfaction on her face when they hit the discard pile.

The whole thing was like a college-level education in fashion merchandizing with classes in ensemble, the rules of shoes (my worst subject) and what you should and shouldn’t match. I was one of the most purely fun experiences of my life and I’m so grateful to have such a talented and giving sister. Everyone I told about it wished they had an Anna!

More Race Pictures!

The Cursed Race

When I was offered the chance to run the Wasatch Back (a 178 mile relay race from Logan to Park City with a team of 12 people) at no cost, I thought, “What could be the downside to that?”

That was before I realized that this particular race was cursed.

The opportunity came through work, and as the captain, I originally had my co-workers signed up and ready to go. The curse began as, one by one, they dropped out for various and sundry reasons (which were mostly medical and all valid) and their replacements continued to drop out up until two days before the race.

Add to this major issues with providing volunteers, online registration breakdowns, transportation miscommunications (we almost didn’t have cars to run this race) and the whole experience was topped off by me locking myself out of my condo the night before. Ohhhh, I positively hated this race! Usually when so many things go wrong, I figure it’s just not meant to be (especially when it’s supposed to be for fun) and let it go, but to my surprise and chagrin, this experience somehow kept saving itself.

But once we got safely off the starting line, the whole thing became a fabulous adventure. We all ran 3 legs of 5-8 miles ranging from easy to extremely difficult—riding along in the car and giving water breaks and cheering each other on when it wasn’t our turn.



Our van had me, my one co-worker, my sister, and my nephew and two of his cross-country friends. Our cross-country kids were incredibly inspiring—we could barely keep up with them in the car for their water breaks (we had to throw out their water to them from the car at times) and watching them sprint up and down mammoth canyons was amazing. We had people along the route spraying us with water, throwing candy into our car, and my sister crossed one exchange point with a popsicle in her hand! :)

My nephew got really sick (heat exhaustion) and started throwing up, but was able to pull it out and finish his legs. My co-worker found out later she ran her last leg on a hairline fracture—and did it in really good time!

We ran into the night with headlamps and reflective vests and had to call out to identify each other. It was so odd being at these remote locations in the middle of the night with hundreds of other people. At 12:00 a.m. we went to one of the break areas where they’d laid down wrestling mats on a school gym floor for us to sleep on. As I walked in and saw the huddled masses beneath their blankets, I suddenly felt like a Katrina victim!

In the end, our team crossed our finish line almost 24 hours later, all in one piece and feeling very happy. And no, I’m not planning on doing it again next year!

Disney Princess

You Are Aurora! (A.K.A. Sleeping Beauty.)

Thoughtful and loving. Authority figures probably have been sheltering you all of your life. Thankfully you're a very tranquil person who is content with what life has given you, but secretly you want to know how the outside world works.

Which Disney Princess Are You?