Dereana’s Childhood

I, Dereana Mary Joyel Pfeiffer (What a mouth full…) was born November 7, 1990 to Debbie and Delbert Pfeiffer. As the fourth daughter to three amazing older sisters, Danielle, Delaina, and Deidre (Yes… All D’s), my parents had to get creative when coming up with my name.

I grew up in little, Paris, AR running through open cow pastures and climbing up hay bales. My paternal grandparents, Greg and Mary, owned a dairy farm just up the hill from where we lived in my early childhood and this free time of playing and exploring, allowed my already wandering mind to fly wild and untamed. Over the summers my maternal grandparents, Lee and Rose, would visit and my artist grandfather always brought an added sense of creativity to already crafty home.

In my home, there was always music, dancing, drawing, and storytelling. And, above all there was always lots of love to go around.

However, outside my home I never felt as though I completely fit in with those around me. Which was especially true, when we picked up and moved to Salt Lake City, UT, for a year just before Kindergarten. As a recently relocated newcomer, I was often found on the playground alone, but I never felt that way. My Kindergarten was magical and as my mind wandered in the classroom, it continued to wander during recess, playing those stories out.

Even after we moved back to Arkansas, I didn’t really learn to suppress the stories in her mind, until I was in fourth grade and my Mom moved my sister and I to a neighboring city. Making friends became a necessity at my new elementary school, the seemingly more life threatening monsters of social circles and popularity consumed my mind.

Eventually I branched out and started caring less about fitting in, which is when musical theater entered the picture. The local university, held Children’s Theater over school breaks, and although I never excelled in acting (mostly because I couldn’t do whatever I wanted when I wanted), I quickly gravitated toward stage design, lighting, and management, eventually working my way up to getting hired on as the assistant director for the summer production of “Into the Woods” where I learned more than I ever wanted to about blocking and sticking to the script.

However, even with all of my time devoted to theater over the break, while school was in session, I always went back to the basics and excelled in art. In fifth grade (For those counting – I was 11), a special guest came to the Gifted and Talented “Lights” classes. They were from a local art school and loaned each of the students a book on learning to draw, in which each student was given a piece of paper with gridlines on it. I started with a nose, which I finished the same day, so when we had the same activity the following week, I pumped out an ear, too. That was when my parents and teachers discovered I could copy whatever I saw onto paper.

The Embarrassing Teen Years

From there, I spent a few years focused on creating art, specifically drawing people and I loved art class while in elementary school. But, when I got to Junior High, my stubborn art teacher told me there was no way I could could get the same use of shading from a mechanical pencil as I could from the different grades of drawing pencils and since I was obviously more stubborn than her, I made it my job to prove her wrong. All year long and in almost every activity I could attempt it in. (See Exhibit A, to the left…). Ms. Bain also said, “It’s nearly impossible to draw an egg”, but I had 0 desire to prove her wrong on that one, so I moved on to the next thing I could challenge her on.

After I fulfilled my high school art credit and was sufficiently tired of art teachers telling me what to draw and how to draw it, I moved on to Choir… for a year. Although, I liked the idea of choir, after a couple of performances, I was exhausted from worrying that I’d pass out from locking my knees. So, I moved on again.

My great migration was to the high school newspaper [🤓]… turning in the absolute best article I could pitch (something along the lines of the best memories of Jr. High or something equally insignificant) and got invited in. In reality, I spent my sophomore year of newspaper working on my first book, over in the corner, while everyone else sat together in their micro-cliques. I also worked on some art in my spare time when my friends weren’t coming over for sleepovers. Oh the good days of eating Oreo’s dipped in peanut butter [NOT caring about calorie counts] while watching movies like Sleepover, Raise Your Voice, and Crossroads, you know… the classics.

After a semester, I realized the Newspaper wasn’t the exactly hip extracurricular, so in addition to being in Newspaper and wrangling my way up to assistant editor, I also went out for Yearbook and got invited to join that, too. Needless to say, I spent my lunch breaks in one room or the other. Poor Mr. Walker – he never quite understood my intensity or determination to make it to the top of the Newspaper ladder or my vicious history of proving the school faculty wrong. Putting all humor aside, just for a moment, in my Junior year, I was given my first interaction with photoshop (Thanks, Mrs. Newman!). Photoshop opened a world of great imagination and I so very gladly stepped in and started using it on EVERYTHING I created. Still to this day, my favorite app is Art Studio (mostly because I can use layers).

Into Senior Year was a whole new world. Instead of taking regular math and English, our school allowed the student to get concurrent college credit, so I walked away with 9 hours between college Algebra and Comp I and II. So, instead of going across town to school by 7:45, I headed down the road to the University! College girl (hair flip implied)! Between college classes, being the Newspaper editor, the Yearbook Ad Manager, and the Office manager 4th hour before lunch, I kept adding to my first book and drawing here and there [more here than there…].

COLLEGE

As an overly excited college freshman, I decided to pursue my dreams and declared Art & English as my Majors… a semester year later, I decided taking Dr. Strain’s Shakespeare classes would kill me and I dropped English to a minor. However, unlike in Jr. High art class, I found a lot of freedom to create what art that I was passionate about, which was thanks in part to Dr. Harrington. For the first time, I explored what fine art really looked like in Art History. Prior to college, getting that level of historical art knowledge was kind of hit or miss.

That first semester, I made friends and this time it wasn’t out of necessity. My best friends, Ethan and Alex (later became my husband), were the ones who most often lugged that ten pound college art history book around campus for me. My back is and forever will be grateful!

Throughout college, I excelled across my studies and was hired on to work in the Registrar’s office as a work study [Intern], which gave me lots of visibility into how the university worked on the back end and as an added perk it also gave me some cash in her pocket, which always seemed to spend itself [Still trying to figure out how that happened?!?]. As a sophomore, I was able to “audition” to become a Student Foundation Board (SFB) member. Our duties were to show prospective students around campus and be a part of the incoming Freshman activities.

That same year, I started dating my now husband, Alex. The following summer I went to Costa Rica with him and met his family. [Fun fact: My sister had this coin she’d carry around in her wallet – well… it eventually became mine, like all good things “shared” between sisters, and I later realized it was a Costa Rican colón. Coincidence… I think not!] When Alex graduated (a semester before me) I traveled to Costa Rica with him to help him and their new puppy, Paris, readjust back to the Costa Rican lifestyle. That summer we got engaged and by the end, I had to return home to finish my last semester of school. Which, looking back, was the most difficult semesters because I had to have a full gallery exhibit ready to go in just under four months.

Costa Rican Adventure

After College, Alex and I got married and I moved to Costa Rica. As soon as I landed in Costa Rica, we immediately went to my first post-grad interview for a teaching job as a Kindergarten teacher. The pay wasn’t all that great, but it was something I could do to contribute and get me out of the house. The homesickness didn’t come immediately since I had spent two summers in Costa Rica before, but when my nephew was born and I couldn’t come home to see him, it set in. During my time in Costa Rica, I taught at Private schools and loved it! Not only did I get to speak to my students in English, I was able to spend time with children. I often had a lot of time to read, write, and draw since we lived about an hour away [traffic] from work. My time there was a great adventure and right before we moved back to the US, I eventually learned to speak some Spanish.

Quick story… When I was in high school taking Spanish I & II, I swore up and down over and over again to my Mom I’d never, ever need to use Spanish… Ha! I guess that’s what I get for swearing…

We also adopted our second fur-child, London, while in Costa Rica. A cuddly, little Persian cat.

Austin, TX Bound

After spending two years in Costa Rica, Alex was hired by a company in Austin, TX and they relocated us across countries with 6 suitcases, 3 carry-ons, and our 2 fur-babies. Although, Alex had traveled to Austin for work once before, I was moving into uncharted territory [Does driving through the city as a teen to get to the beach count?]. However, as soon as we stepped off the plane in Austin, my parents were there to help us get settled into our new apartment and kind of figure out our new surroundings.

I spent a few months looking for jobs and finally found my first job as a Marketing Coordinator. However, living in north Austin and working south of the river, a 20-minute drive without traffic, but an hour and 30-minute drive with traffic, was a pain. However, for 8 LONG months and one ice storm, I picked up my Costa Rica driving skills and braved Mopac (Highway 1) with the newest Taylor Swift album playing in the background.

Austin living was great, but my anxiety blossomed and it became hard to control. That’s when I picked writing up again to help with the exposed and uncontrollable emotions. Before Alex and I moved into our new home, I dreamt about Jane and Vincent. It took me a few days to write anything down, but one night, when the anxiety was heavy, I started writing it down.

So, I spent a few months, writing at 11p.m. before I figured out Vincent wasn’t just a normal man. While Alex was away visiting his family or on a work trip, I spent time doing research about greek mythology, specifically as it relates to phoenix. Then, starting from the beginning, I added in the missing pieces and the characters started having flashes – oooh lala!

Luckily, around this time I also started working at National Instruments (NI), which was just around the corner from our apartment, which allowed me more time to write, read, and do research, now specifically as it relates to Jane’s history in her previous lives.

Working for NI was the best thing that could have happened for me at that time. Not only did I grow professionally as a marketer, but I made friends, ones that brought me out of my shell and taught me what it meant to be a foodie! I spent almost three years working for Partner marketing and then the company decided to reorg the marketing structure, which blurred my job security.

During this time, Alex and I bought our first home and I started making friends at church. Meeting Maria, gave me a friend to talk to, but a friend who became a great support in my writing. Many nights, we’d spend hours talking about the chapters I had sent her and what I had planned for the rest of the series. To this day, I still share everything I write with Maria and she always says I’m the best writer she’s ever read. What would we do without friends and people there to support us through all our walks in life?!?

During this time, we also added to our furry family. We got Dublin (white Siamese Cat), Berlin (Tricolored Dachshund) , and Rome (Tricolored Chihuahua). Bringing our total of furbabies to a whopping 5… We love them all and have loved getting to know all of their vastly different personalities.

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We also got a few fish, but after we killed 3 different groups and feeling awful about it, we decided we just weren’t fish people.

Moving to Arkansas

Christmas 2017, Alex and I decided to start looking for homes in Arkansas after spending a magical Christmas break at home with family. I was still stuck in Austin since my job wasn’t remote, but once Christmas was over, I started applying for jobs. Alex helped me vamp up my resume and start applying. About a month later, I got a call from my current company asking me to join their team.

After that, everything was set in motion. We put our house in Austin up on the market, put an offer in on the house in Arkansas, and I switched jobs. During this time, we also took a trip to Canada!

Once we finalized paperwork on the house in Arkansas, we moved! Everything happened really quickly, looking back, but in the moment it seemed like the longest three-four months in the world.

All the while, I was still churning out pages on Seventh Rays of the Sun – Eden (Book 2 in the trilogy) and reading (shocker there…)

We’re so happy living in Arkansas, even though I was leery to move back to my home state. We’re closer to family and friends, which gives us more time to travel and explore the world around us.

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