31 Questions: Day 9

Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below with a link if you’re playing along!


31 Questions
March 2021

March 9 – Has a teacher ever changed your life? How so?

Jayden: Absolutely. My first grade teacher (who I thought hated me) recommended me for gifted. Later, I went back and worked with her class to read to the younger students and she was so nice to me. I don’t know if it was my perception or her attitude that changed, but it made a huge difference in my understanding of teachers, even at that young age.

Richard: Let me tell you about Frank Peters. Frank Peters was older than the university he taught at, and possibly the universe itself. Like most professors, he had some student advisees.

One day, one of his advisees came to his office. He was a senior, who only needed one class to graduate (because my university was terrible, and people frequently had to take an extra semester for one class.)

“What should I take, Doctor Peters?” asked the student.

And Frank Peters, whose wisdom was infinite, said, “You should take six gyms.”

This caused the young man to freak out a little, which was not unusual when Frank gave advice.

“But Doctor Peters,” he said, “What will companies say when I apply for jobs and they look at my transcripts?”

“No one looks at those anyway!” said Frank Peters. “They don’t care what courses you took, or what your GPO is,” GPO was not an abbreviation the college had used for at least a millenia. “And if they do, they’ll just think you’ll be cool to have around at the company picnic.

The student wound up taking three gyms. He got a job somewhere down south as a professional frisbee player at company picnics.

31 Questions: Day 8

Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below with a link if you’re playing along!


31 Questions
March 2021

March 8 – Do you think you’re currently operating at 100% capacity?

Jayden: Is anyone? But I’ve been making improvements to my sleep schedule so that hopefully I can operate at better capacity.

Richard:

31 Questions: Day 7

Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below if you’re playing along!


31 Questions
March 2021

March 7 – What was your very first job?

Jayden: I worked at a chicken wing restaurant. It was a fun first job, and I still adore wings!

Richard: I was a camp counselor. It’s still one of the best jobs I’ve ever had, and had a big effect on my path through life since then.

31 Questions: Day 5

Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below if you’re playing along!


31 Questions
March 2021

March 5 – What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Jayden: That there’s only one way to do something. There are lots of ways to do most things, and we should all embrace our differences whether it be in learning style or relationships or whatever.

Richard: One time, when I was depressed, someone got me a self help book that could basically be summarized as, “Nothing you think matters, God will just make you do whatever you’re supposed to do.” This is poor advice in general, and was especially bad in that mental state.

31 Questions: Day 4

Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below if you’re playing along!


31 Questions
March 2021

March 4 – Are you living your life purpose — or still searching?

Jayden: I think I’ve made great strides toward finding my life purpose and living it. Many of those strides have been verrrrrry recent, too.

Richard: Definitely still searching. I don’t know what I want to be doing two years from now, let alone for the rest of my life!

31 Questions: Day 3

Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below if you’re playing along!


31 Questions
March 2021

March 3 – Do you believe in magic? When have you felt it?

Jayden: I think in general, magic is science we just don’t understand yet. But sometimes magic is a feeling. Pieces falling into place in ways that we don’t understand yet.

Richard: One time, while talking about laundry detergent, I reached behind the couch and felt a bottle of laundry detergent. I still have it, it’s my change jar. I’m a master of detergent-mancy.

31 Questions: Day 2

Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below if you’re playing along!


31 Questions
March 2021

March 2 – Do you have any irrational fears?

Jayden: Yes! I have a super strong fear of losing all of my writing via fire. It’s on multiple computers and backed up to the cloud, but I am deathly afraid that I’ll lose it all somehow.

Richard: I say I’m going to get fired at least twice a week. They can’t fire me, we’re already super understaffed.

31 Questions: Day 1

Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below if you’re playing along!


31 Questions
March 2021

March 1 – What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

Jayden: “When I’m with you, I might have to admit that I could be happy.” That might not be word for word, but it’s close enough. It was from a person who previously said they didn’t think they could ever be happy.

Richard: The other day, someone told me I was so charismatic that they had a friend whose job is to talk them out of doing whatever I tell him to do. It’s not my fault that I’m smart and sexy. My ideas all sound great because they are!

Checking In

Hello dear readers, Jayden here to give you an update on how things are going for Richard and I in the realm of writing. Back on New Year’s Eve, I had the pleasure of introducing Richard and sharing some of our writing goals for 2021. We wanted to take some time to check in with you all and give you an update of how we’ve been doing.

I will freely admit that consistent writing hasn’t been going very well, but that’s primarily due to some major life changes for both of us, including that we moved in together about a week ago! But now that we’re settling in and finding new routines, I hope that our word counts will jump up.

1 Million Words!

We started the challenge of writing 1,000,000 words in 2021. When I attempted this last year mostly on my own, I was super on track in January! And then February I slipped a little. And then quarantine… And yeah, that was it.

This year, we did not start off super strong, but I have confidence in Richard and I that we can catch up. We wrote 31,445 words in January and 24,173 in February. I guess technically we could write a few more words tonight, but I don’t suspect there will be a ton more coming in today.

Thank you Richard!

I was excited to announce Richard joining me two months ago, but I am super happy to say that it’s been working out better than I ever thought it could. We have posted every Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, and some additional days. That’s a *huge* improvement over my previous blogging habits, and we’ve seen that with more regular readers. So thanks to all of you who are reading! But I have to give a lot of the credit to Richard, who has sat with me while I dragged out the words to make my personal posts and has collaborated with me as we’ve done our collab posts sometimes wrapping things up just minutes before the scheduled post. I couldn’t have done it without you!

Looking Ahead…

We are excited to answer some questions for you every day of March thanks to Marquessa Matthews. Make sure you check back daily to learn a little more about Richard and I.

In addition, we’ll still be posting on our regular schedule:

Tuesdays:We will both answer the questions from the TMI Tuesday blog.
Thursdays:Stop by every Thursday for one-shots from Richard!
Saturdays:Collaborative Writing – Stories we write together.

And then in April, we’ll take a break from that schedule because we’ll be doing the A to Z Blog Challenge! The Theme Reveal goes up on March 8th! Get excited! I am looking forward to generating more content!

March Blog Challenge!

We’re excited to announce that we’re joining @marquessamatthews in answering 31 questions in the month of March. We’re still committed to bringing you our regularly scheduled Tues/Thurs/Sat posts, though. Don’t worry!

Tuesday – Join us for TMI Tuesday where you get to know more about Jayden and Richard!

Thursday – Richard is taking over with some one-shot short stories until we start the A to Z Blog Challenge in April.

Saturday – Richard and Jayden will continue Vacation. Join Mark and Ivy on a cruise! We can all use some fantasizing about lavish vacations right about now.


Oh, and we mentioned the A to Z Blog Challenge in April, so let’s talk about it! Jayden has been a long time organizer of the event, and we’re excited to get ready for the Theme Reveal which will happen sometime in March. Check back on the A to Z Blog for details! We have some ideas we’re working on for our posts, and we promise it will be a fun (and probably kinky) time!

Orange #PUSHunt

Let’s play a game! It’s called PUSH and it’s super fun. Go learn more here or google the hashtag!


Orange.

It’s the opposite color to blue, which is my favorite color. It’s been my favorite color since…as long as I can remember. Blue is the color that everyone goes to when they’re asked for a favorite.

Okay, not everyone, obviously, but many people. I have 0 scientific proof, but I think blue has been the most common favorite color every time I’ve ever polled people.

But what does that have to do with anything? Does it matter what our favorite colors are? Does it have some super power that tells you who you’re compatible with? Does having opposite favorite colors mean something bad? I don’t know. I don’t really believe in horoscopes, so why would I believe in something like favorite colors dictating something?

I don’t. Honestly. But it’s funny that in so many ways, we are opposites, including our favorite colors. And maybe that’s okay. It’s nice to have a colorful world, isn’t it?

But now I think of you every time I see the color orange. For the rest of my days, I’ll think of you every time I see it. I hope that the memories will be fond ones, but no matter how this ends (if this ends?) I will still think of you when I see the color orange. Because while the color (and so many other things) has been burned into my mind, your love has been burned into my heart, and there it will stay.