One thing I noticed while speaking to Krista Tesreau, who very recently reprised her popular role of Mindy Lewis on GL, is how warm and personable she can be. The character of Mindy was brought back for the high school reunion of the "Four Musketeers" and pretty soon, it felt like Tesreau and I were old school pals ourselves, catching up as Tesreau brought me up to date on her life post-Springfield and we each shared our memories of Melinda Sue. "I've always considered Guiding Light my home," she tells me, "Of any show I've ever worked on, that was always home to me."

While Tesreau's appearance this time was only short term, she is certainly open to more guest stints, however, a full-time comeback is not in the cards for now. "I'm very happy in Santa Monica, California, and we're very settled here, but how fun to come back here and there?" Of course, the "we" refers to Tesreau's family, which includes husband Glen Strauss, a financial advisor for Wells Fargo, and two young children, three-year-old Mikey, and Julia, sixteen months. "I would certainly be amendable to come back more often. I gave them different possibilities, we both talked about different possibilities. But I just had such great fun." There is no question that the character of Mindy will always be a part of Tesreau's life as she later found out. Not long after we spoke, Tesreau was dressing to go to dinner. "I looked in my wardrobe and saw a beautiful black wool long skirt (a basic closet staple) and considered wearing it," Tesreau shares, via email. "I looked inside and on the inner tag it says, MINDY!"

What was the return to the GL set like for Tesreau? "On the one hand, so many things have changed," she admits, "And at the same time, nothing has changed. This is my first experience with this new format for taping and it is different. It's exciting though. The speed of the taping was pretty fast! Things that haven't changed? Michael O'Leary (Rick). Oh God, his ad-libs and still being so funny. He was a blast and so is Grant (Aleksander, Phillip). Between the two of them, they were just teasing me like they used to. They just picked up without skipping a beat. And Beth Chamberlin (Beth) and I have really become close and even though I didn't work with her in the eighties, I feel like I did. And Beth and I share a bond already, just of being moms - both of us have boys that are three and a half years old and they were born within a week of each other. We sure have a lot of similarities." Tesreau also took the opportunity to catch up with other cast and crew members. "Call Grant to get Locke's phone number," Tesreau reminds herself out loud when I ask about the show's longtime stage manager Locke Wallace, now retired, and who made occasional appearances. "Grant and I talked about Locke and I would love to just call him." Tesreau also reunited with other pals. "I had lunch with Hillary Smith (Nora, OLTL) and that was really nice. Just reconnecting with everyone. Ellen Wheeler directed me one day and that was so much fun." But no reunion of the Four Musketeers would not be complete without their signature catch-phrase, "Blue skies and palomino ponies," which Tesreau tells me originated from the book, Splendor in the Grass. "That was (former head writer) Pam Long's favorite line from the book. It really started out with her writing that line for Phillip and it migrated to the four of us. I don't know if Grant really wanted to say that line!"

Since playing Mindy, the actress has been busy with other projects, peppered with several daytime roles, most notably Tina on One Life to Live. Tesreau sadly acknowledged the passing of former castmate Phil Carey (ex-Asa) and was actually unaware that Clint Ritchie (ex-Clint) was also gone. "I did work with both of them a little bit," she notes and goes on to share a hilarious outtake in a scene with Ritchie - "You probably can't print this!" she laughs, and she's right. But suffice it to say that it's a funny memory of Ritchie that Tesreau can now recall with fondness. Other projects have included hosting ("I must've hosted about twenty infomercials!" she laughs) but mainly Tesreau has been focused on her family. "I always wanted to be married with family, and that dream came true. I got married in July of 2004 and within a month, I was so happily surprised, I was pregnant! Now we have two kids and I'm just loving being a mom. I think having children later in life, I'm so ready for it. I'm so prepared and so enjoying it and appreciating it."

"We travel quite a bit," the St. Louis, Missouri native continues," I think we have five or six trips coming up in the next few months. My mom just had a huge birthday party, she just turned eighty! She is about the youngest looking eighty-year-old I have ever seen. I think about a hundred and forty of her closest friends and relatives, we all gave her a big lunch and she loved it. I organized that, actually. And then there is vacationing. We went to Italy a couple of times. We spent two weeks in Tuscany and took twelve family members, and that was a fabulous trip. As recent as last November, my family (which included Tesreau's mother) vacationed in the Bahamas for a week. I'm just loving doing that."

Of course, anyone who knows Tesreau can attest to her longtime love for playing the piano, which is still a big part of her life. "To find the time now to play is tougher and tougher," she admits, "And my husband plays. He is a fantastic pianist. We have two grand pianos back to back in our living room, and we play like dueling pianos! We've been working on a concerto the past couple of years; most concertos average about fifty pages, and this particular piece is by Robert Schumann. I play the piano, the solo, and my husband plays the adaptation for the piano. It's like the orchestra. It's so beautiful. But really, when we both sit down at the piano, here comes little Mikey! 'I want to play, I want to play.' He only wants to play when we sit down to play. We're trying to figure out a nice little schedule where Mikey can go to the park maybe, for one hour, so we can just play. We both love that. We try to learn a few new pieces every year because we hold an annual holiday party and we will perform. We've given concerts here, and little recitals and we can take lessons from our teacher. It's a very musical house!"

As for a favorite Mindy memory, Tesreau has several but one stands out. "Sarah Michelle Gellar came up to me and I said, 'Congratulations on your success,' and Sarah asked ,'Do you remember me? I was your flower girl at Kurt and Mindy's wedding.' I totally forgot. I had a bunch of flower girls, I had a lot of little girls carrying my long train and and vaguely remember it. But she said, ' I remember because it was one of my first jobs, and you played the piano and my mom wanted me to take lessons and she wanted to call you.' She remembered that so vividly for a little girl! That was very sweet of her to have told me that." And there there is the infamous closet scenes with Rick. "They were supposed to be just average scenes on the show, they weren't a climax to a story or anything, but they were the most fun scenes and we were able to ad-lib and because the proximity was so little, getting the cameras in there, the physical stuff was so funny. And you know how funny Michael O'Leary is. There were things we were allowed to say and things we weren't, because of the space, so we actually were able to improvise and kind of go with it. We just ended up laughing and having so much fun - and trying to suppress the laughter! I just loved all the comedic stuff that they gave me. And on the other side, the flip side, I'll never forget the scenes when Mindy was pregnant and she had a miscarriage. And Grant Aleksander just reminded me of something in those scenes! He said, 'Krista, do you remember when you were lying in the hospital bed and you were more concerned with how you looked?' I probably shouldn't even be telling you this but I had to have my lipstick on! I wanted my lipstick from make-up and they refused to give it to me and Grant was saying 'No, Krista, no!' And again, when Kurt died, Mindy was supposed to be disheveled and here I was, I wanted some lipstick on! But Krista of then is different than Krista of today. I don't know what it was but I wanted that lipstick and Kim Zimmer (Reva) said, 'Krista, take that lipstick off now!' She said, 'Kiss me! Come on, kiss me! I need lipstick, they didn't put lipstick on me, and you need to take it off!' These guys were so hysterically funny."

"That camaraderie that the four of us have, you can't fake it." Tesreau says of her newest scenes. "That chemistry is so real. You can't manufacture that, it's either there or it's not. I felt really good about those scenes. I was told that we're going to see about having me back sooner than later, which would be great!"

By: Dawn
Photos courtesy of Krista Tesreau and JPI-Studios