My name is Jill. How’s that for an exciting intro? I was born in the latter part of the 70’s in Peoria, Illinois. I had an innocent enough childhood living in a cul de sac, playing with the other children on the street by building snowmen during the winter and popping tar bubbles in the road/catching fireflies in the summers. Life was good.
Then my parents packed us up and moved us to Utah, a place that did not have fireflies and where the other kids accused me of talking funny. That automatically made it a bad place to me. I quickly adapted and grew to love family hikes through nearby National Parks and skiing through the state’s famous powder. (Although I haven’t done much skiing since I had my knee operated on in 1996.)
I have lived in a few different places in Utah, but most of the time I considered my home to be Cedar City. Cedar City is a great little town with lots of good things going for it; easy access to the National Parks, great culture with the Utah Shakespearean Festival, location right on the interstate so you can easily drive to bigger cities with better shopping.
I graduated from high school in Cedar and was bound and determined to move away for college. So what did I do? I stayed right there and got my degree at the local University. It was a great experience and was the right choice for me, I have no regrets. I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications, emphasis in Broadcasting and a minor in Computer Science in three years, magna cum laude. (That designation doesn’t matter anywhere else in life, so I might as well put it here.)
I also started dating someone during my second year of college. I continued to date him after college and we were married two years after we graduated. Kevin is a wonderful person and I can’t imagine my life without him. Yet another reason why staying in Cedar was the right choice!
After graduating I started to work at a television station in Salt Lake City as a graphic artist. I did that for two years. Yes, the pay was incredibly low. Yes, the hours were incredibly strange. But, there is an incredible rush that comes from putting together a live TV show and having it hit the air perfectly, even if everything behind the scenes is falling apart. Even with that ‘natural high’, I was unhappy in the field. I rarely saw my boyfriend/fiancé (we got engaged during this time) and I was rundown and depressed. So I started looking for a new job.
I got my new job as a web developer and forced the fiancé to move back to Southern Utah 6 months before our wedding. I have been in that job for more than 10 years now. I really don’t feel old enough to have been in a job post-college for a decade (especially since it’s my second job post-graduation.)
My husband went back to college during that time and got another bachelor’s degree and his master’s degree in accounting. He finished the 2nd round of higher education in the spring of 2005. He was offered a job in Las Vegas, NV and since we moved for my job last time, we agreed we would move for his career if needed. My employers were gracious enough to allow me to keep my job, so now I telecommute from my home. (In case you were wondering, yes… I do actually get dressed each day. But no… I don’t put real shoes on.)
We’ve been living in Sin City since the summer of 2005 and so far we are finding it to be a good home.
Maybe that wasn’t so short. Of course, I didn’t tell you all of my life story, such as the Cabbage Patch Kid moment, or the Butt Incident, or the trouble with the Neon, or my nose job, etc…
GlossyVeneer 