Post-Celebration Celebration!

So I’ve just returned home from my work’s centennial celebration party. I cannot believe that it’s finally here and done with. For at least the last six months—and the last two months in particular—this party has dominated my life. At work, I’d be running in and out of meetings, taking short lunches and working long hours, and basically running around spinning plates. Projects that I’d usually spend a few days on I had to finish up in a few hours.

Looking back, I have no idea how I did it.

Over the course of two months I ended up redesigning our entire brand, then creating a centennial branding scheme and applying it to everything. I worked with a publisher in New York on a magazine piece, working on everything from structuring the article, editing and rewriting text, securing advertising, setting up the design to meet specifications, and proofing the finished layout (and believe me, this piece needed a lot of proof work and editing). I also coordinated two other magazine pieces in Salt Lake, including managing management—making sure they got to their photo shoots and video conferences well prepared. I designed ads for newspapers, magazines, and websites. Met with printers and foil stampers. Folded and stuffed and labeled invitation after invitation. Created and proofed billboards, banners, and displays. Met deadline after deadline after deadline.

Most days I’d come home so tightly wound and ready to break that Ryan would dedicate his evening to tactfully helping me unwind, de-stress, and relax. He has been my rock throughout this whole adventure, and believe me, I’ve had to lean on him through a number rough patches—bursting into stress-related tears in front of the company president, his wife, and entire executive team comes to mind. (Yeah, that was awkward.) Or the week where, after a 10-hour stressful day at the job, I’d come home and spend another few hours at work on a BYU manuscript and then more hours on a sharing time. It was as exhausting as it sounds.

Really, though, I think that’s why tonight felt as nice as it did: I put a lot of hard work into this thing. It was really gratifying to see this hard work printed 5 feet tall and in a place that really could only be described as classy. And, of course, I loved having people stop me and give sincere, positive feedback about my work. Which happened a lot, actually.

I feel a sense of real accomplishment—almost more for surviving it all than anything else, even though I realize I’ve done and learned a lot.

So here’s to enjoying the moment! Even though I’m sure work will continue to be crazy and ridiculous, things feel pretty good right now.