She’s an oldddd maiddd…

I am a tall, slender, 51-year-old woman who is sort of in a mid-life crisis! Who can explain it, you just “hit the wall” when you hit your fifties and realize that you want to look good and feel good and you just don’t.

I was in a spiritual logjam, as well, just stuck. No matter where I turned, there was a crisis, whether it was finanicial or job-wise or house-wise or family or friends or whatever. It’s turning out to be a great blessing because last year, I revved up to high gear and started DOING something. I feel more alive and energetic and look better than I have in years. That logjam is clearing and, by the grace of God, one by one, I’m outlasting my problems and winning. Hallelujah!

My sister and I have never married. We love that scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” where Jimmy Stuart and Clarence chase Donna Reed to the steps of the library where she cowers in fear, and they say so mournfully, “She’s an oooollllldddd maid”.

So my sister and I joke about moving to a small town in central Utah or Nebraska or Oklahoma or someplace really remote and I’d become the town music teacher and church organist and she’d become the town librarian and school teacher. We’d bring our CATS (and that would make everyone whisper about how very eccentric we are). And I’d shock everyone by also teaching yoga or fitness in cute sportsbras and tight black spandex, and the two of us would BUY the veterinary clinic and hire a couple of really cute, widower-type veterinarians who are much younger than we are, and we would let the town GOSSIP to beat the band!

I lived in Texas Corporate America for ten years. You wouldn’t recognize me from those days. I had long painted nails and Texas hair (”the higher the hair, the closer to God!”) and wore business suits and high heels. I think I had zero dress slacks and only one pair of jeans when I left Texas; it was all about designer dresses and suits, for me. The shoes I brought with me paid the mortgage when I sold them on ebay.

Here in Colorado, eight years later, I’m more “earthwoman”. I can’t stand to squeeze my feet into crampy shoes… I wear health sandals and fit flops to show off the last vestiges of Dallas life: a hot pedicure with Asian art on the big toes!

Are you getting the picture of who I am today???

I live in the house of my dreams and live for summers when I can garden… and yes, it’s organic. No chemicals. Right now, I have the spring crops in: spinach, lettuce, chard, sugar snap peas, beets, kohlrabi, onions, and garlic… oh, and a nice strawberry patch. My peach, pear, and apple trees are all in bloom. May and June is the perfect time for my house because I’m pretty good at spring flowers — not so good at keeping things colorful summer and fall. But it’s so lovely, the newspaper gave me the “Yard of the Week” award a few years ago. And people stop their cars and back up to the front of my house when the fragrant and highly illegal Dame’s Rocket is in bloom. (You can’t buy or sell it in Colorado because in the wilderness areas, it takes over. But in my home garden, it’s very cool!)

My hometown is Salt Lake City, Utah. Yes, I’m a Latter-day Saint. I did my wandering and have been on solid ground for many years. Today, I’m the organist for my church and help with all kinds of crazy welfare needs. Check out how I help people via my Relief Society blog.

These gifts all came from my mother. She was an intensely talented social worker when I was very young, but she slid into homelessness when I was a bit older. Some day soon, I’ll set up a blog to tell our stories of getting her off the street. If you really want to know who I am, you have to understand the relationship between me and my mom. She was a beautiful person, so kind and so sensitive to others, she remembered whatever you told her about your life and asked about it the next time she saw you, even if it was weeks later. When she died, the back rows of the chapel were packed with those who had helped to care for her in her final years.

You’re wondering if I have a job! Yes, I’m an IT Project Manager, that means I know all about computers. I enjoy my teammates but it’s very stressful work, we’re at the top of our game working on very big, very formal and intense projects. I’d just as soon throw my computer out the window at the end of the day. If my friends wonder why I’m not on email, it’s because I often don’t even turn it on when I get home.

Maybe that explains why my sister and I daydream about being old maids in small town America.

Anyway, I do animal rescue and love to gentle down injured and feral kitties so they can have better lives. My biggest pleasures right now come from playing the piano for friends and cuddling my kitties and working out at the gym and pulling weeds in my garden.

And THAT is who I am! This blog, and the reason for it, are the tiniest part of the bigger picture.

All the Lord’s blessings to you,

Teresa

Teresa with her rescue kitties at dinner time — yes, the food I’m feeding them is as natural and holistic as mine is. I tame them down and adopt them out through a friend’s clinic; my sister, living in a different state, helps with spay-neuter programs. Ah, that explains why my sister and I daydream of tall, handsome, and available veterinarians!

P.S.  Why this article?

I didn’t realize that a complete picture of the host of this blog wasn’t coming forward until I linked up other meningioma blogs and saw that it was sometimes hard to even know whether or not the writer was a man or a woman!

So gads, here is who I am! I don’t share my full name. It’s just that I don’t want people to google on my name and learn all my health stuff. People hear “brain tumor” and get all panicky. So just know that my name is Teresa and I purely enjoy living in Colorado.