Piano

Last night, for the first time in years, I went in to my piano room, shut the door, and played for hours. It was such a good time, I didn't want to stop. At first I played with the silent mode on (my baby grand has a way to channel the sound into headphones only--it's really useful). I didn't want to wake the kids. But after a while I wanted to sing along, so I ditched the head phones and played and sang as loud as the music moved me to. Singing is probably my first passion, way before playing piano. A single voice accompanied by a well-played piano is an amazing, beautiful thing. Not to say that I'm a piano virtuoso or a Carnegie Hall soloist. Far from that. But I love the limited talent I've been given and don't mind sharing it occasionally.

I'm so thankful that I suffered through 7 or 8 years of lessons (merely because my sister loved it and I had to keep up with her). I hated practicing. I was always in the shadow of Janice back then, since not only was she talented, but she loved playing. I'm thankful for all those years of sight-reading music while playing for choir in high school too. Now I can pick up most pieces of music and play them without practicing--thankfully, since I never take the time to practice the music I play for Church or wherever.

Music (whether it's me making it or not) has such a profound effect on my life and most of the people I know. It does my soul a lot of good to get back to my musical roots every once in a while. Hopefully I can continue these late-night concerts, even if nobody but me is listening.

My List

My girls stumbled across a list I made a few months ago while sitting behind the piano in Primary. Since they don't read very well yet, they asked me what it was. It was interesting to see their responses to what I read to them. They immediately started to name off things they were grateful for (after I explained what grateful meant). Kids are so positive and optimistic. I love their attitudes. We can learn a lot from them.

Things I'm Grateful For (in no specific order)

• My mom
  
• My sister
  
• That my husband is nice to me
  
• That my girls seem to love me a lot even though I'm not the best mother
  
• That people forgive me for my shortcomings
  
• My job
  
• My home
  
• My whole family and my husband's whole family
  
• Good friends and co-workers
  
• My country
  
• Those who serve me (soldiers, church leaders, family, friends)
  
• My health
  
• That I'm finally close to my goal weight
  
• Nice weather
  
• Good food
  
• Sports
  
• Music
  
• My talents
• That my girls are good people

Things I Need to Work On

• Thinking of others first
  
• Being a good example for my children
• Being completely honest with myself and others
  
• Being humble
  
• Loving myself
  
• Setting priorities and sticking to them
  
• Avoiding self-hatred
  
• Playing with my kids more
  
• Serving others
  
• Being a better neighbor

First Day of Kindergarten

Emma, my sweet little five year old, was so excited for her first day of kindergarten. I woke her up at 7:15 and she was a little slow to wake, but as soon as I told her "It's time to get ready for your first day of school!" her eyes opened wide and so did her smile. She was, without a doubt, ready to be a student.

As I got her bathed and ready, she kept asking "Is it time to go yet?" I had to remind her that clothing would be a necessary thing to attend school, and that we couldn't leave before getting shoes on and having a good breakfast. The breakfast, however, could hardly be described as nutritious. Cocoa Pebbles. But I did sneak in a piece of whole wheat toast and a tiny glass of milk as I always do.

I put her hair in two pigtails that reach past the middle of her back. I didn't want to do anything too grown up. That way she would still seem like my little tiny baby girl.

We took some pictures in the back yard before we left. I loaded her into the back seat of the Sequoia without a car seat and drove the half mile to Art City Elementary. I wasn't emotional at all until we pulled in to the school parking lot. We stopped to take a single picture in front of the school before going in. With her little hand in mine and with her shiny new brown with blue polka dot book bag in the other hand, we headed for Room 4, Mrs. Sabey.

The small world we live in was once again in effect. Mrs. Sabey and her husband and son know Erik's family quite well. I spoke with Mrs. Sabey for a few minutes and while I did, Emma was already finding a place to hang her book bag and looking for anything in the room with her name on it. She was already worried about being left out, and she informed us that she didn't get a paper. Mrs. Sabey let her know that the papers would be going home with her at the end of the school day and Emma was satisfied. I took one more picture, gave Emma about 5 hugs and more kisses and then asked her, "Are you ready for me to leave you yet?" For about one second, she looked a tiny bit worried, then quickly said "Bye Mom!" I couldn't let her go that fast, so I reminded her that Dad would be coming to get her, that she should listen and be good, and told her I loved her. She gave me one last hug and I was out the door, walking down the hall with my camera swinging from my arm and tears in my eyes.

I felt a strange comradery with all the parents I met in the hall and I wanted to be a good parent, a good neighbor, a good member of the community. I'm one of them now--a grown up--but a grown up who has some growing up to do still. I drove to work with the radio off, contemplating my life as a parent. I need to be a better one. Emma deserves a better one. I want her to go to school and be proud of who her mom is and for me to deserve her love and high regard. I hope that the demands of school will be a catalyst for me to become like my own mother, whom I never doubted and was always proud to call "Mom."

Pictures are posted here: http://picasaweb.google.com/wendy.busath/EmmaSFirstDayOfKindergarten02#

Cancer, Round 4217...or so

The day started with Emma running to my room and saying, "We're going to Cracker Barrel." That is one of my Mom and Dad's favorite places to go in the mornings when they're here visiting us. Mom and Dad and my family headed over there and during breakfast I kept fighting the urge to cry. Mom kept talking about her plans to cut her hair off since the chemo is causing it to fall out (again).

Mom was first diagnosed with cancer in 1997--breast cancer on the right side, stage IV. Doctors said she had a 2% chance of survival at that point. She had a radical mastectomy and lymph node removal. High-dose chemotherapy and a stem cell replacement was done, and following that, radiation. We decided to do reconstructive tram flap surgery and hope for the best. In 1999, however, cancer was found in the other breast and a mastectomy and lymph node removal had to be done. Mom had an implant done on this side for reconstruction since the tram flap wasn't as great as she'd been promised it would be. There were other countless reconstructive surgeries, scans, blood tests, and a lot more that I've forgotten and I'm sure she'd like to forget. For years now, cancer has been on the radar, but not really making any real threat to her life. It has finally settled in her bones--her hips, spine, and ribs--and it has been growing and giving Mom some pain. She tried radiation which worked somewhat, and then chemotherapy pills for a few months, but there is still evidence of cancer growth, so now she is back to intravenous chemotherapy. It's about three weeks into it now. On the way to Utah this past week, she had a "port" installed into her chest through which the chemicals are administered weekly.

Apparently three weeks was all her hair could stand, and it was coming out in handfuls this morning, so she decided today was the day. As a family we got together at my sister Janice's house, with cameras and video cameras and a new wig in tow, and cut Mom's hair. Starting with the youngest children, we each took our turn with the scissors and trimmed a handful of hair off--short. All the kids and grandchildren were there except Brad's family. I got the honor of trimming it up to make it look even before we had the "Ta Da!" moment, as Mom called it, and donned the wig, after most of the grandkids tried it on first.

Nearly ten years prior, I had also had the honor of cutting off all of Mom's hair before her first set of wigs were employed. Who would have known the last decade would be such a long road of hope and of heartbreak.

Photos can be seen here:

Cancer Sucks

Today I spoke in Church. I'm not sure how I pulled it off, considering I'm probably one of the worst sinners in the ward, but for some reason, I usually do just great. Public speaking isn't a problem for me...it's the hypocritical ideas I stand up there and preach that get me. Anyway, here it is:

I must start by apologizing to brother Stewart, who called me late last Sunday night (from his untraceable cell phone, mind you) to give me the opportunity to speak in church. To his question, I replied "Oh, I hate you! Why did I pick up the phone??" I assure brother Stewart that I don't hate him but that he was simply the bearer of bad news and he couldn't have chosen a worse week to deliver it! He informed me that my topic would be about achieving balance in life through Gospel teachings. He even had the nerve to say that he thought it looked like I had achieved some balance in my life. Right then, I knew that he was not inspired, nor was his thought to invite me to speak about this topic inspired.

So, having such a "balanced life," as I left work at 1:30 AM Wednesday morning, I complained to my co-workers about the dreaded assignment to speak in church, and I told them how I certainly wasn't qualified to speak on "balance in life." One co-worker told me about his life-long research project of noting who was listening during sacrament. He said, "After years of studies, I've come to the conclusion that about 2%, (typically the ward freaks) listen intently during the whole talk, 3-6% listen because they are too bored to even sleep and the other 92% are in another world." So, I figure I don't have to worry about impressing anyone today since I don't think there are any freaks in our ward. :)

I started researching my topic on the LDS.org site by typing in "balance in life": 1676 hits. Just for kicks, I thought I'd see how many hits I got on the topic "sleeping in church" : 2189. :)

With the internet as a tool, it's possible to research a topic so much that you can become so full of facts and quotes that you don't have time or energy left to analyze them and make sense of them enough to write the talk. It's the same way with balancing your life. Sometimes you fill your life so full of activities that you don't have the time or energy to analyze whether those activities make sense or lead to who you really want to become. I have always been a lover of variety. Not only do I like to do many different things, but I like to do all of them WELL, and most of the time, I attempt to do more than one of them at a time!

Richard G. Scott, “First Things First,” Liahona, Jul 2001, 6–9 Are there so many fascinating, exciting things to do or so many challenges pressing down upon you that it is hard to keep focused on that which is essential? When things of the world crowd in, all too often the wrong things take highest priority. Then it is easy to forget the fundamental purpose of life. Satan has a powerful tool to use against good people. It is distraction. He would have good people fill life with “good things” so there is no room for the essential ones. Have you unconsciously been caught in that trap?

For the past few weeks, the concept of "being deliberate" has been on my mind a lot. Being deliberate means to very carefully weigh or consider any decision or action. I think the reason I've been thinking about that was to help prepare me to give this talk. In a recent one-on-one interview with my boss at work, I brought up the fact that dreaded rumors of layoffs were circulating again and inquired if the layoff were to happen if she thought I'd be one of those let go. Most of you know I work at Novell, and layoffs there are a lot more prevalent than we'd like them to be. In answering my question, she discussed a type of employee she calls "a victim," who are always the first to be let go. These employees just simply "get through" each task, doing only what MUST be done, not excelling, but just biding their time until the next product is complete or the next team milestone is reached. They blame failures on upper management, on bad processes, poor planning, and lack of training. Rather than seizing opportunities for personal growth and being proactive in one's own career development, "victim" employees wait for things to happen to them.

How many times, in our daily activities, do we find ourselves being a "victim," just waiting for the activity to be over so you can get on to the next one? That 2% of you who is listening is probably thinking "yes, right now I'm waiting for this sacrament meeting to get over!" But, while we're here in sacrament, or while we're doing anything, shouldn't we try to use that precious time to develop our spirits, bodies, minds, or your relationships with family? Being "deliberate" about what activities we choose and being "deliberate" about using those activities to grow temporally and spiritually can make the difference between being a 'victim' in this world or being someone gets things done, who enjoys life, and who feels a sense of accomplishment, peace, and balance.

How can we be more deliberate in choosing what things we do?

1. Establish our priorities

Dallin H Oaks "Focus and Priorities" has said.... Jesus taught about priorities when He said, “Seek not the things of this world but seek ye first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (JST, Matt. 6:38, in Matt. 6:33, footnote a). “Seek … first to build up the kingdom of God” means to assign first priority to God and to His work. The work of God is to bring to pass the eternal life of His children (see Moses 1:39), and all that this entails in the birth, nurturing, teaching, and sealing of our Heavenly Father’s children. Everything else is lower in priority. Think about that reality as we consider some teachings and some examples on priorities. As someone has said, if we do not choose the kingdom of God first, it will make little difference in the long run what we have chosen instead of it.

Example: Employ Dalin H Oaks' "Good Better Best" talk in your life. Great talk. Everyone should read it. Here are a couple of examples from his talk:

In choosing how we spend time as a family, we should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best. A friend took his young family on a series of summer vacation trips, including visits to memorable historic sites. At the end of the summer he asked his teenage son which of these good summer activities he enjoyed most. The father learned from the reply, and so did those he told of it. “The thing I liked best this summer,” the boy replied, “was the night you and I laid on the lawn and looked at the stars and talked.” Super family activities may be good for children, but they are not always better than one-on-one time with a loving parent.

To our hundreds of thousands of home teachers and visiting teachers, I suggest that it is good to visit our assigned families; it is better to have a brief visit in which we teach doctrine and principle; and it is best of all to make a difference in the lives of some of those we visit. That same challenge applies to the many meetings we hold—good to hold a meeting, better to teach a principle, but best to actually improve lives as a result of the meeting.

2. Make plans, both short term and long term. "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." Don't just wait for opportunities to come up, or for someone else to invite you to do something.

Example: If you feel like your family has lost some unity, consciously decide to do something of quality together. Plan a designated starting time and stopping time. Make sure every family member attends. Example: Start building long-term traditions that are built on a schedule. Something you do once a year, once a month, etc.

3. Use the "death bed" method. If an activity is something you won't look back fondly upon when your life is nearly over, maybe you should choose something else.

Whenever I have a moment of reflection when I'm watching one of my daughters sleep or seeing one of them excel at something for the first time, I get a short glimpse of things that are most important in life. I wish I could make time slow down so I could enjoy them more, teach them more, be a better example to them. These are the moments when we are in the right state of mind to make decisions about how we will spend our time wisely.

How can we be more deliberate in making the most of each activity?

1. Be conscious of "coasting." Like the "victim" analogy I talked about earlier, don't let yourself just coast through the things you do each day. Be proactive. Be constantly evaluating whether you could make these next 10 minutes of your life more productive and meaningful.

Example: If you're waiting on someone at work, don't just veg out and surf the web. Read a book that advances your career, or read the scriptures.

Example: If you're spending time with your kids, teach them about things while you play. Tell them gospel stories, explain how trees grow.

2. Listen to promptings of the Spirit no matter what you're doing. Sometimes the most insignificant feeling can be a prompting that, only if acted upon, can change an experience dramatically for the better.

Story (time permitting) A counselor in a bishopric at one of my BYU wards, shared this story with us. He was BYU policeman and was out patrolling. He saw a car parked in a dark place. It wasn't illegally parked, so there was really no reason for him to stop and check things out. But, he felt a tiny feeling that he should go check out the car and he almost avoided it. He said he would be forever grateful that he followed that small prompting, because as he approached the car, he could see a girl inside who was holding a loaded gun. She was about to kill herself. Through his being there and his caring what happened to her, he talked her out of committing suicide that night.

3. Find time to relax and to exercise.

How many of you remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? I remember studying about that in a basic psychology class in high school. The hierarchy of needs is a pyramid whose foundation lies in supplying the physical needs of the body, such as food, water, air. I would add rest and exercise to those basic physiological needs. If these basic needs are neglected, your brain will go into self-preservation mode, and you will become incapable of attending to needs further up on the pyramid such as family relationships and spirituality. On the other hand, if we take time to give our body what it needs, all our activities will be enriched.

Lastly, being deliberate in everything we do is a great goal. Life is busy, it's confusing sometimes, and sometimes we just don't quite live up to the goals we've set for ourselves. We need to understand that we're not perfect and not get so frustrated with ourselves that we give up. I find myself in this vicious cycle all the time.

Brent L. Top, “A Balanced Life,” Liahona, Apr 2005, 40

One of the barriers to spiritual balance is “pseudo-self-reliance.” Robert L. Millet identified the danger of relying too much on our own limited abilities. He said that some Church members who are blocked in their progress and weighed down with guilt “seek to double their effort—to work harder. If the present pace does not eradicate the problem, they decide to run faster. Too often what follows is a type of spiritual diminishing returns—exhaustion and additional frustration. The answer to all problems is not necessarily more and harder work, particularly in regard to spiritual matters. The answer is often to learn our limits and do what we can, then turn to the Lord for assistance.” 7

I truly mean it when I say I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak today. I do need balance in my life and I know now that Brother Stewart was indeed inspired to have me speak on this topic. In closing, I'll share one of Erik's funny family stories. Erik and his brother and sister all attended the same easy astronomy class while at UVSC. His sister, Lori, was talking about it one night at a family gathering and she said "That class was so easy you'd have to be an idiot not to get an A," to which Erik replied, "What grade did you get, Lori?" "B-" was her reply. :) You really would have to be an idiot not to realize that the teachings of the gospel contain thousands of ways to help us live a happier, balanced, more peaceful life. They key is, we need to study these teachings and actually employ them in our lives in order to reap the benefits of them. I have a testimony that the teachings of the gospel do provide a way for us to find balance and peace in our lives. I'm thankful for my family and all my extended family, for the gospel in my life, and, again, for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Police Reunion Concert!

Thanks to a co-worker of mine who was desperate to get rid of a couple Police tickets at the last minute, we went to the concert at the Usana Ampitheater last night. He paid $220 each for them. I bought them off him for $50 each. I felt a little bad about that, but I wouldn't have paid any more than $50 for them and it was down to the wire, so I figured he would be happy getting at least something out of them.

The concert was pretty good. The band looked a little old, but Sting can still sing. What a great voice. True to form, I get much more pleasure out of watching the people attending the concert than the actual concert itself. People are fascinating...

Some photos of the 2008 Montana Trip can be found here

http://picasaweb.google.com/wendy.busath

2008 WasatchBack Ragnar Relay

I can't believe it's over already. Less than 5 weeks before the relay was to start, I was contacted by some Novell co-workers who had someone leave their team because of an injury. Since I had been poking around to see if anyone had any openings a month or two before that, I was still on their list of people to contact in case of an emergency. Secretly, I had been relieved that nobody could find a spot for me. But when the opportunity presented itself (in the form of Mike Elquist, our team captain), of course I had to accept, or I'd look like a total chicken!

So, I picked up on the training and tried my best to get ready in the short time I had left. I pretty much became a running fool for those 5 weeks. Let me just state: I AM NOT A RUNNER. I think the furthest run I had completed to that date was a mile and a half in my BYU Fitness for Life class (and that was not pretty) and I won't even tell you how many years ago that was! The only time I like running is when there is something to run towards, like a basketball, a child running into the street, or maybe a homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting...

I am proud of myself though. I ran 5 miles a day some weeks. It was sheer hell and I am no more a believer in the "fun" of running now than I was before. I am now, however, a believer in the fact that nothing gets you in better shape than running. Of course I didn't lose any weight over all this. That takes an act of God for me.

I got really involved in the team spirit stuff. I came up with our team name, "Geeks Gone Wild," and created a team logo for our t-shirts. I stayed up at night agonizing over how we would decorate our 2 support vehicles. Finally, the Saturday before the race, it hit me. Geeks love robots. So I built some robots out of boxes, bottles, a dryer vent hose, and some silver paint. They looked pretty cool. The head even lit up on one of them. That is geekhood at its best right there.

The night before the race, I didn't sleep a wink. I got up at 5:00am and took a shower, headed to Wal-Mart to get some last minute stuff like biodegradable soap for the tent showers I'd heard they had at some of the exchanges. Karl DeBrine and Terry Wong picked me up at around 9:30 Friday morning and we headed to Lindon to meet with the rest of our van-mates, Ian Robertson, Sara Robertson (no relation to Ian), and Jason Neuwirth.

We arrived at exchange 6 to take the hand-off from our Van One-mates, Gary Gillilan, Eric Gillilan, Cheryl Gillilan, Mike Elquist, Braden Elquist, and Scott Shepherd. The waiting was awful on my nerves. We had some free Noodles and Company, stood around, put the robot on the top of the suburban and put the signs on the sides. Then it was time for Jason to take off.

Watching those guys run didn't instill any faith in me that this was going to be fun, and that was nothing until I watched Ian run his leg. Four miles straight uphill to SnowBasin, in the hottest part of the day, and I was to follow right after him, for 3 more miles of the same terrain. About half way through Ian's run, a strange calm came over me. I realized I had to do this regardless of whether I wanted to do it or not, so I might as well get it over with and try to do it to the best of my ability. I took the bracelet from Ian at around 6:00 PM and started out slowly, because I'd heard each of the other runners say they started out too fast and burned out. I kept about a 10 minute mile pace up my 5% grade and finished in pretty good shape. I did stop and walk for about 20 feet once, but almost nobody saw me do that, so it doesn't count. :)

Leg two was at 4:22 AM around Rockport Reservoir. Before I started, I was terrified that the lack of sleep and exhaustion was going to make me hit the wall, hard, during this run. But as soon as I took that bracelet, I felt awesome! I could have run forever in those conditions. I was passing people left and right, the view of the water and the weather was beautiful, and I was enjoying running (possibly for the first time in my life!). I made it through those 5.2 miles in about 42 minutes. I think that is probably the fastest I've ever run any type of distance. I cannot believe how great I felt during that run. After I passed the bracelet to Eric, I was almost sad it was over. I cheered Eric and and could barely sit still as I got back in the van. I guess that is what some people call the "runner's high" and I better enjoy it because I'm sure I'll never feel it again!

Leg three was around 2:30 PM on Saturday. I was the last leg, so it was my job to "finish strong," as Ian put it when he slapped the bracelet around my arm during the last hand-off. By this time I was delirious and a tiny bit stiff, probably from lack of sleep more than anything. It was hot. I'm guessing it was probably 95 degrees. I took off and I was telling myself "you are so lucky this is flat or downhill in most places" the entire way. I honestly think they mis-labeled the length of this 5.0 mile run. It seemed more like 7 to me. When I came to the top of a hill and encountered a Ragnar volunteer reporting by walkie-talkie which team was coming in next, I figured I'd be able to see the finish line, but I couldn't. I slowed down and said, in an almost ornery voice, "where the crap is the finish???" and then forced a smile so I didn't seem rude. He sort of smiled and said "about a half mile up." That half mile seemed like two, but I made it almost there and Sara ran out with a bottle of much-needed water to run it in with me. I saw Erik and my girls waiting for me, trying to figure out how to run our new camera, and cheering me on. I gave the girls a big wave and I sped up a little as the rest of my team joined me and sped up even more when they split us off so I could hand in the tear-off from my racing number. I was finished and so were the other eleven idiots who did this with me. And we did the whole 180 mile trip in 30 hours and 30 minutes, which averages around 10 minutes per mile. Sadly, the winners did it in about 16 hours, but hey, nobody on my team had any delusions that we'd win anything. Our "winning" was making it through safely and pushing ourselves to our limits.

What an accomplishment. I am glad I did it, and I would do it again. I don't know if "fun" is the word to describe it. I can't really state how I feel about it at all. It was a milestone in my own personal fitness level and I did it all with a group of complete strangers. They are an awesome group of crazy, self-torturing people and I hope to be able to do something like this again with some or all of them.