Going country

Once upon a time, Sofia Baeza was a big-city girl with big city dreams. Then she fell in love with a cowboy. And the rest is history.
Nearly three decades later, as Sofia embarks on yet another adventure with the opening of her new business, Cleaning With Kindness, she looks back at those early years that today seem like a lifetime ago. Back then, she was an up-and-coming career woman in Chihuahua, Mexico, where she went off to work every day in suits and heels as the secretary for a high-ranking government official. Because she had gone to Dallas to learn English, she served as the ambassador for English-speaking diplomats.
It was a high-profile job for the young, working single mother, who had set her sights on escalating up the career ladder.
A visit to her aunt in the country abruptly changed all that with the meeting of a cowboy roper and horse trainer named Alvaro, who would sweep her off of her feet and lead her away from her urban life to parts unknown, including ranches in Colorado and Wyoming.
A six-month stint on a ranch in Upton turned into 22 years, where the city girl in heels and lipstick promptly reinvented herself within the confines of her new rural lifestyle. 
Her first job? Cleaning the ranch house of her husband’s employers.
 “It was an adjustment to go from living in a busy city to out in the middle of nowhere,” she said in her still thick Spanish accent, which she jokes only continues to linger over time as a remainder of her homeland. “Here I was used to dressing up to go off to work in a fancy office, and suddenly I’m working around the house.”
Changing her career course – which she found surprisingly easy because like anything else, she noticed, it’s all about one’s attitude – was nothing compared with adjusting to Wyoming’s frigidly cold and gusty winters. Initially, she wanted to cry, but after watching her husband and children easily go out into the elements without any complaining, she realized that she too would learn to deal with it.
“I just put on my coat and kept my mouth shut,” she said, making a zipping motion across her lips. “I didn’t want to be the not-fun-one complaining.”
Along with housekeeping and her other duties, she also helped Alvaro around the ranch and with the horses, which became a passion that she loved, along with roping. 
In fact, horses probably taught her some of the more rewarding lessons in her life, particularly when it came to her stubborn pride. She, like some of the thoroughbreds and other horses with fine lineage and papers, had to come to terms with her new station in life, far from her glitzy life and dreams back home. After being bucked by a stubborn well-bred horse out in the middle of nowhere and suffering a broken wrist, she realized that she would trade in all of the expensive horses for a well-mannered horse with a good disposition.
She knew that this lesson applied to her as well, and if she was to do the Lord’s work as she believes is her duty in life, then she needed to lose her pride in order to be useful. 
The newfound understanding changed her life and her understanding that God’s greater plan is to be trusted and not questioned. 
Today, looking back at her younger self, Sofia said she is grateful for this lesson and all the others God had to teach her. 
Eventually, boredom during winters out on the ranch brought Sofia into Newcastle, where she worked for years as a waitress at several downtown establishments where she cheerfully enjoyed waiting on people and meeting new faces.
Eventually, she began cleaning houses for Colleen Donaldson at Cleaning Unlimited and realized there was a huge need for such work. After “learning from the best,” she branched out on her own and grew a lucrative business.
Sofia grinned.
“I had no competition,” she said. “No one wants to clean because it’s considered low end.”
She had no problem stepping up to fill the gap in services, because, as she noted, she was confident enough in herself to not care what other people might think of her.
In fact, she thinks that parents do their children a real disservice when they encourage them to follow their dreams and passion at the expense of practicality and taking a job to make a living.
 “We set our children up to fail,” she said. “What we should be teaching them to is to find a gap in business and fill it. Then take the money and pursue their hobbies on the side.”
That philosophy has worked well for the practical, hard-working businesswoman who believes the only way to truly get a floor clean is on her hands and knees. It’s this level of quality and hard work that she attributes to her success and a business, which she not only considers beneath her, but also a blessing to be able to provide.
To Sofia, it is an honor that people would trust her enough to open up their home. She took — and continues to take that trust seriously — as she embarks on her business.
 “In small town, if you mess up, then that’s that,” she said.
She also likes that the cleaning business has afforded her a flexibility she would not have in a typical 9-to-5 job, which has been a godsend to her over the years as she raised her four children.
Recently, when Colleen decided to sell her business and retire, Sofia decided to buy it and expand. Now, along with offering business and housekeeping services, she offers carpet cleaning, water and fire damage restoration and painting, her personal favorite.
Much like her cleaning business, she prides herself on quality service and follow-through.
 “I only use the best electricians, plumbers and carpenters,” she said, adding that all, including herself have an LLC license and insurance. “All are local and work to help the community.”
She’s not in this alone, she added, and has plenty of qualified people around to help her as she manages the jobs.
 “We are a team,” she said. “You can’t do it alone.”
And as she ramps up for a busy year, she reflected back on her younger self and the lessons that life in Wyoming has had to teach her. Among her blessings she counts her church and women’s group and a community that has all but welcomed her and her family with open arms. 
Most of all, she can’t imagine living anywhere else, and jokes when Alvaro occasionally brings up the idea of moving. 
 “What, I say to him, are you tired of living a happy life?” she said. 
And her trademark smile and contagious laugh left no doubt that she expected no for an answer. 
As for her, there’s nowhere else she’d rather be than out on a horse in the middle of God’s country on the edge of the rough, wind-strewn prairie. Just her and her horse and nothing to see for miles in any direction.
“This is where I find my home,” she said.