2016

Hi Readers

Can you believe it, it's 2016 already! 5/1/2016. Wowzers.
I have not written a blog post since last year! (sorry, I had to say that)

2015 was a busy year, I read books. Lots of books. How exhausting.

In January I watched the Lord of the Rings for the first time (Ok, it was censored, I haven't actually watched it in full)  I loved it! Legolas, Sam...

From March to April I read Les Miserables, a truely amazing book. I even found the history of the french sewers interesting. (Perhaps not the history of french slang though).
Jean valJean was such a good character!!

In May I turned 13, my first year as a teenager! Time to start stinking and grunting.
I also got a blog! The Sherwood Storyteller, named for my obsession with Robin Hood and writing.

In June I read my first Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Needless to say, I loved it.

September was mainly full of a huge holiday in North Queensland, we went snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and walking in the Daintree Rainforest. It was a pretty good holiday!

In November I came second place in a short story competition with The Woes of Sir Clankyteapot and the Dragon of Raven Mountain. (I still haven't posted it yet....)
I also watched my first Marvel movie, the Avengers, I was very excited about that.

In December I kinda paniced as I realised that 2015 was almost over, I mean, it only just started didn't it? For Christmas we went up to Queensland again where we stayed in a street with the best Christmas lights in Brisbane. One of them was probably the best in AUSTRALIA! It was that amazing! We had a few great parties and we even watched StarWars 7 in the cimema's for our Uncle's birthday. It was great.

And now it's 2016 and we're trying to get our schoolwork organised for the next term.
I'll be doing Legal studies and Australian Political History.

What are you doing this year dear readers? Did you have fun over New Year's?

Thanks for reading!

BIG BOOK SALE!

 It’s that time of year. The time for buying presents, making wish lists, and planning New Year’s Resolutions. If any of those activities involve books for you, Indie Christian Authors has a perfect event for you. From Nov 27 through Nov 30th, more than 70 independent Christian books are on sale. You can find free shipping, $0.99 ebooks, package deals, and more! And if your budget is depleted from Christmas shopping, they’ve got you covered with some freebies Think 70 books is overwhelming? Narrow it down and find the perfect books for you or someone on your Christmas list by using this quiz to generate a customized book list.

A note on the Ebooks Only page. All books are listed as “Sold Out.” This only refers to paperback copies of these titles. Please click onto the product pages to find descriptions and links to discounted or free ebooks.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Leah E. Good for her work organizing this sale, Gloria Repp for completing the time consuming job of uploading book info to the sale website, and Hannah Mills for her fantastic design work on the website graphics. Hannah can be contacted at hmills(at)omorecollege(dot)edu for more information about her design services.

(As you can probably tell, I didn't write this post)

Personaly, I'd like to read the Minstrels Song series be Jenelle Schmidt. 

Bye for now, and have fun buying books!  

The Beesheep Family

Hello Readers!

Today I have a short story to tell you. It was written as part of an English course called IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing). Mum drew three pictures which I then wrote a story from. Feel free to tell me what you like, or what you think I should change.

The pictures (Mum intended them to be the billy goats gruff):

The Beesheep Family

By Jemma Tainsh

Once upon a time in the Land of Strange And Unusual Animals there dwelt a family of Beesheep. Beesheep are delightfully queer. While Snarks have fins and fangs, and Crogs skitter along the sand croaking, Beesheep are very useful in that they make honey as well as woolly jumpers. At the time of this tale, the youngest Beesheep (whose name was Bob) had gone out to wander over the hills. Bleating and buzzing joyfully, Bob bounded around with his sister – Carmella. They bounced over hills like enthusiastic frogs. Abruptly disturbing the peace of the countryside, Bob suddenly shrieked in delight. Carmella looked up in surprise. “What is it?!” She cried in a tone of excitement. “I saw a coconut!” Exclaimed the exuberant Bob, “just over that hill over there!” He was very excited you see, because it is very rare to find a coconut in the land of strange and unusual animals.

Unfortunately, when Bob arrived at the scene of the coconuts he was greatly disappointed. “Who could have conceived it?” he cried in dismay. “These lovely coconuts are eggs in disguise! Eggs of an Ostrigoose if I’m one to judge.” he noted most dolefully. Behind him his sister was also quite sad. “Although my meals are delightfully variant, I must really say I would have enjoyed a coconut today.” Sighing most sadly, they both walked away. Terrible disappointment hung over them both.

When they arrived at their gigantic Bee Hive, the whole family became as sad as they were. “How terrible!” cried Pete.

“How miserable!” wept Jen.

“How positively tragic!” Papa sniffed.

Sobbing quite terribly, Mamma Beesheep was inconsolable. “Coconut toast would have done me just right.” She moaned very dismally as she considered their plight. Disappointed Papa stared at the ground, edging his feet round a hole that was there. Then with surprise he lept in the air! “Which of you wants to know what I found?” Around him the family stopped in surprise. Hopefully crying out all in one voice “We do Dad, we do!” “Four lovely big coconuts here in this hole!” He exclaimed with a cheer. “What a strange happening” the Beesheep family rejoiced, “that makes one for each of us!”


A bit of a silly story :) 
I might not write many blog posts this month as I am participating in NaNoWriMo. My username is JemmaToad if you want to be buddies. 

   

Sweater Weather tag

Hullo Dear Readers

Recently I was tagged by Amazing Allison from the Art of Storytelling (Thank you :D)

It's actually pretty hot here in Australia, but Autumn is my favorite season :)

Now for the questions:

Favorite Candle Scent? 
Pear and Ginger, it smells so good....:)

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate :D I love the cadbury mint :D In summer I have cold chocolate:D I try to like coffee but it's not working to well... I like Mocha's too, a mix between Hot chocolate and coffee.

What's your best Autumn memory? 
Tough....Maybe my 12th birthday party. It was a dress up party, people dressed up in things varying from Will Treaty to Tintin. I was Luke Skywalker :) It was very fun :D

Best fragrence for Autumn?
Hot chocolate, I love that smell. Or wood smoke :D

Favorite Thanksgiving dinner (I don't have thanksgiving so I'll say Easter)?
Umm... Lamb roast? With gravy. And lots of homemade chips :)

Most worn jumper?
A navy blue hoody. It had a long pocket that you could put both your hands in. It got to small though... :(

Football games or jumping in leaf piles?
Leaf piles :D They sound really fun:)

Skinny jeans or leggings?
Skinny jeans, or just jeans (mostly tracky pants actually...).

Combat boots or Ugg boots?
Ugg boots :D Mine are all fluffy on the inside :)

Is Pumpkin spice worth the hype?
I've never actually tried it. (Or heard of it)

Favorite Autumn movie?
Hogfather, it's not really Autumn, but oh well :)

What do you want to be for Halloween?
I've never actually celebrated Halloween.

Hats or Scarves?
I love my beanie, it's so snug and warm :)

What's your 1# favorite thing about Autumn?
 My birthday :D I love having birthdays :) This year for my birthday I got a blog :D

I don't really have anyone to tag who hasn't already been tagged so goodbye readers and thanks again for tagging me Allison :)

Sir Walter Whiskerface

Hello Dear Readers :D


Yesterday I finished a project which I have been working on for a looong time.

For Christmas last year I received a knitted cat toy kit. I am finally finished!

Please welcome..... Sir Walter Whiskerface!

Hello!

I made Sir Walter to the sounds of many audiobooks; War and Peace, The Woman in White (giving him the name Walter after Walter Hartright) and finally Pygmalion.

Why yes indeed, how true

 He is a very dignified cat with a fondness for reading mysteries with Mum.

Oh my goodness! Really?

 Though he can be surprised very easily.

Sir Walter says fair thee well

Fair thee well, dear readers and thanks for reading! :)

A Holiday in Queensland

Hello dear readers!

I'm back! I've just been away on a two week holiday to Queensland. Be prepared for a very long post about my adventures :)


First stage:A loooong to Brisbane, stayed with relatives for a day.

Second stage: 7 hr drive to Gladstone.

Third stage: 8 hr drive to Arlie Beach.

Arlie Beach was amazing! On the first day we hung out on the beach and went shopping in the mall
The next day we went on a cruise! We hopped on a boat out to a pontoon on the Great Barrier Reef! On the pontoon we went snorkeling, the water was pretty cold but there were fish swimming around everywhere! When we hopped out of the water we had lunch then got in a submersible boat. The submersible boat had windows along the bottom so you could look out among the fishies and the coral. I even saw a shark!

On the top deck (Mum's Pic) (I'm the one with dark hair)

Cruising through the Whitsunday Islands 

View from the submersible boat (Mum's Pic)

About to go snorkeling, we're all in our stinger suits
(Photo by onboard photographer)

Me and Dad on the boat (Mum's Pic)

Forth stage: 7 hr drive to Malanda Falls.

In Malanda Falls we went to a family reunion, the reason of our holiday. And we also visited some waterfalls. Unfortunately I was sick and didn't enjoy much of Malanda. (Though I definitely enjoyed the chocolate factory, mmmm, chocolate...)

Millaa Millaa Falls

Zillie Falls

Ellinjaa Falls

Millaa Millaa Falls again

We saw an echidna! (Mum's Pic)

And there were goats/sheep at our caravan park :D
(Mum's Pic)

Fifth stage: A 3 hr drive to Cow Bay.

Cow Bay is located in the Daintree Rainforest, a pretty impressive rain forest I must say.

I found a Gecko! So cute! (Mum's Pic) 

Our cabin was a little getaway place in the forest, so we were all alone with the birds and butterflies. On the first day we visited the Daintree discovery centre, where we went on a few walks and I saw a Cassowary. (Cassowaries are endangered.)

Some birds nests (Dad's Pic)

After Cow Bay we drove back through Arlie, Gladstone and Brisbane and now I'm home again! It's good to be back :D

If you want to see more photos have a look at Mum's blog
How were your holidays dear readers? Read any good books lately?



Thanks for reading! See you next time. :)

War and Peace

Hi Readers!

I finished War and Peace recently! I downloaded an audio book version from Librivox. I thought "I could finish this in a month!" when I finished one book out of seventeen in two days. I was much mistaken. It ended up taking from May till September - so much for my estimation:).

War and Peace was a pretty amazing book. The plot was quite gripping and the history was interesting. And boy if I did a line graph for the characters of how much I like them it would go from middling, to a sudden dive, then a peak, then a dip, and on, and on, and on.

I would recommend War and Peace to people who like to read and who also like the kind of french aristocracy type of story (Russian, not French though (not much of a difference)).
If you liked Les Miserables then you'll probably like War and Peace. (And vice versa)

I can't wait for 2016, BBC is doing a TV series for it :D

By the way, I won't be writing any post for the next two weeks, though I will still respond to comments and such.


Thanks for reading!