Name:  Valerie
Age:  40-ish
Natural Hair Color:  Light Reddish-Brown
Eye Color:  Green (with “rings”)
Personal Patron Saints:  Catherine of Siena, Cecilia

I am a cradle Catholic who has a good knowledge of the faith, which is unusual.  Most Catholics (capital “C”) have had little-to-no catechesis and bring up social issues which are laid out with clear arguments for or against, if they’d take the time to look at the faith they profess to believe.  I completed a 4-semester certificate program at St. Paul Seminary, reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church from cover to cover.  Lots of words and lots of depth to those words.  The program helped me understand Catholic teaching and how to explain without trying to convert the listeners.  I’ve had many fruitful conversations explaining what the Catholic church actually teaches verses what people think it teaches.  The ability to have an exchange of knowledge without argument or anger has been a wonderful blessing. 

I married my high school sweetheart – though it was a turbulent path.  We met at church choir around age 14, though we went to different junior high schools.  Once we got to high school, we had a lot of classes together.  He started dropping hints in 9^th grade, but it took until Halloween of 11^th grade for us to start dating.  We dated for 13 months and broke up spectacularly.  It took 3 years until we started talking again (even though our parents were still friends) and started dating less than a year after that.  We’d been exclusive for 2 months when I asked him to marry me.  It was September – his response was “Really?!? I was going to wait until Thanksgiving to ask you!” 

We’d been married for almost 10 years when we found out we were pregnant.  Because of other health concerns, we thought I was infertile.  Oops.  Our Sophie Surprise was unexpected but very welcome.  She was born on New Year’s Eve, almost 3 weeks early, and ruined our plans for New Year’s.  We were going to watch the prenatal videos since we missed the classes, then go to bed early since we were scheduled to sing at the 8AM church service the next morning.  Since then, parenting has been a wonderful, terrifying, and gratifying experience.  Watching my daughter as she grows and changes, trying to teach her better habits than I have, seeing the way her mind makes connections and views the world has been amazing. 

I have a BA in Music, with a focus on Worship and Liturgy.  At the time I started my degree, there were plenty of church jobs, including positions for Liturgists separate from choir directors and accompanists.  Within the 4 years I was in college, all the jobs dried up as churches merged and decided that they needed musicians more than they needed good theology and good worship practices.  Since then, I’ve had a bunch of different jobs but keep on ending up in mortgage banking.  I’m so sick of corporate bank culture that I decided to get the “shiny paper” that proves that I have different skills than my employment history suggests.