It's mid-morning on Christmas Day. We’ve unwrapped our presents and we're in the living room playing a Wii game Mum gave me.



The door bell rings. I sprint to open it. My brother, Callum, and his wife, Casey are standing on the doorstep.


"Merry Christmas!" Callum calls. He is holding a huge basket in one hand. He gently places it on the floor. "We've brought our cat, Mo with us." He opens the lid of the basket to reveal a ginger kitten.


"Aww!" Gemma-Rose sighs. "He's so cute!" We've never met Mo before.

Casey picks Mo up and passes him to Gemma-Rose so she can have a cuddle. A grin spreads across Gemma-Rose's face. She loves animals.


Mo is excited to be in a new place. As soon as Gemma-Rose (reluctantly) puts him on the ground, he rushes off to explore. Soon he discovers our three cats, Sammy, Jenny and Poppy.



He approaches them carefully. They're over twice the size of him. Sammy takes one look at him and bolts. Poppy and Jenny follow suit. For some reason, they're terrified of Mo.


Mo spots some fairy wrens through the window and jumps onto the windowsill to watch them. The birds fascinate him, and he doesn't move for ages.


"He's so cute!" Gemma-Rose says again. Casey smiles.


Eventually, we leave Mo so that we can have Christmas dinner. He doesn't move the whole time we're eating.



After Christmas dinner, we all head back into the living room. I settle down in an armchair to do some colouring in.



Mo pads into the room and looks around. He approaches my seat and looks up at my lap. His muscles bunch up, and he jumps onto my lap. He loses no time in making himself comfy. Soon he's fast asleep.


Through the course of the afternoon, Mo sleeps on nearly everyone's lap. We all get a turn at holding him.

I pull out my camera and take a few photos of him. He is photogenic and isn't bothered by the clicking of my camera's shutter.



By the evening, Mo has woken up and is wanting to play. Gemma-Rose teases him with a piece of curling ribbon, waving it in front of his face. Mo leaps and pounces around the room, trying to catch it.


 Mo's energy starts to wear out. He yawns.

"We'd better let him have a rest," Casey decides, scooping Mo up into her arms. Gemma-Rose's face falls, but she doesn't complain.


It's late when Callum and Casey take Mo home. We all wave goodbye. It's been an amazing Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas! Did you have a good Christmas? How did you celebrate?

Summary: Prince Aleksander, would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.
Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.

Click to read my review!

What books did you enjoying in 2015? What books are on your reading list for 2016? Have you read any of these books?

It's starting to look like Christmas in our house. Sunday morning my older sisters, Imogen and Charlotte, vanished into the garage to search for our Christmas tree.


They appeared a few minutes later with a massive cardboard box containing our tree.

"I feel like we're carrying a coffin," Charlotte joked.

I snorted. They looked much too merry to be coffin bearers.


Imogen and Charlotte lowered the box to the ground. Gemma-Rose, my younger sister, and I pulled branches from the box. We sorted them into piles for Imogen and Charlotte to connect to the trunk of our tree. We all knew what we were doing. We've put our tree up this way for years.

Sammy, one of our cats, noticed the piles of branches and lay down on them. He was most upset when we needed to use the branches he was resting on.


It didn't take long for us to assemble the tree. Imogen and Charlotte moved onto the next task: wrapping the tree in lights and tinsel.


Imogen has been putting the lights on our Christmas tree for years. It's the hardest part of decorating the tree, but she knows all the tricks and didn't have much trouble.

My camera was snapping away as everyone was working.



"Are we going to find embarrassing photos of us short people trying to decorate a tree on the internet?" Charlotte asked me from the seat she was standing on. (She can't reach the top of the tree without it.)

I just smiled. They don't care what photos of them are on the internet.


"How does the tree look?" Imogen asked Mum. She flicked the power switch and the tree lights came on.

"It's beautiful," Mum said. "Well done!"


Now all we've got to do is hang our decorations on the tree. But we won't do that today. We'll save that for another day.

Have you decorated your tree yet? What is your favourite part of preparing for Christmas? Are you ready for Christmas?

There doesn't seem to be enough time to read all the amazing books in the world.

Today I'm sharing my tips to help you read more books.

Read One Book at a Time

I hardly ever finish reading the books I'm reading if I try to work through two at the same time. I keep forgetting what happened in which book and who the characters are. Then when one book gets exciting I forget all about the other and most likely never finish it.

I find that reading one book at a time helps me understand the story line easier and I even finish my books faster which means I can read more of them!

Keep a Reading Notebook

I try to record almost all the books I read in an Evernote notebook. I write down the date I finished it, what I thought of it and my star rating (similar to what I do in my review posts). For more information please read my sister, Imogen's, blog post

Keeping a record like this inspires me to read more often. I love to see the amount of books I’ve read go up and to be able to look back at the books I've already read.

I think you can also do something similar on Goodreads, but I don’t know much about that.

Take Advantage of Spare Moments

There is so much time in a day which I could be reading in. I just wish that I used this time better than I do.

I chomp through my reading list a lot faster if I use the spare moments in my day. These times include when I’m waiting for something in the oven, when I can’t sleep or when I’m having my morning tea.

Read Kindle Books

There is nothing like the feeling of reading a ‘real’ book, but there are a lot of advantages to reading Kindles. Kindles are light (perfect for traveling), Kindle books are cheaper, and you can even change the font and size of the text you’re reading, just to mention a few.

I prefer bringing my Kindle with me when I go out places rather than lugging around a heavy book. I love reading while waiting outside piano lessons, on trains and in waiting rooms, so my Kindle is my best friend.

What are your tips? Do you agree with any of these?

This dragon belongs to my older sister, Imogen. When she received it in the mail from a friend, I couldn't resist taking some photos.

I've always wished I could create such cute toys, but I don't have the patience to learn. I'd much rather just take photos of them. 

Credit

Title: Faery Rebels #1: Knife

Author: R. J Anderson

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 4 out of 5

Blurb: Once upon a time, a fairy is born. She lives in an old oak tree at the bottom of a garden with the rest of the fairy folk. Never has she known a time when life hasn’t been hard, with many dangers and much adversity. But when she becomes the Hunter of the group and learns to do battle in the outside world, her adventures really take off...

My Thoughts: I liked how this novel unfolded. The story kept me and Knife (the main character who is a faery) guessing what would happen next. It revealed the plot little by little so that things only came together at the end!

One of the things I loved in this book was the differences between the faeries and the humans. They lived completely different lives and didn't understand which other at all. It was exciting to read how Knife and a human got to know each other. They each had a lot of learn about the other.

I liked how every character ended up being important to the story. Even the characters who seemed unimportant at first had an role play.

In the novel, Knife tried to find out the faeries' unknown history. She hoped that it would explain why faeries are so afraid of humans. As the story progressed, she started guessing the reason of this fear. She guessed a lot of different explanations. So many that when the truth was at last explained I didn't quite believe it!

All in all I enjoyed reading Knife. I hope to find the next book (Rebel) in the library soon. With luck it will be just as good.

Have you read Knife? What did you think of it? What do you think I should read next?

 
So far the month of November has been quiet over here on The Techno Maid. Why is this? I've been participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a challenge to write a 50k novel in a single month.

Every day since the first of November I've sat down at my computer and churned out as many words as I can.

On the eighteenth of November, I hit 50k words. I'm so proud of myself. This is a new record for me. Every other year I've done NaNoWriMo, it's taken me much longer to reach my goal.

So what did I write?

I decided that instead of writing a fantasy novel like I do most years, I'd like to try my hand at sci-fi (my second favourite genre).

Here is a summary I wrote for my novel:

Michael has a plan to free the world of pain. When the government refuses to allow him permission to let his research loose on the world, Michael becomes focused on getting the permission he needs. He soon forgets everything else, including the real purpose of what he is doing. Michael soon comes up with a plan to force the government to agree to his plans. But it is against all the good things his original purpose stood for.

Cassia is a test-subject of Michael's. She is also the first person affected by Michael's plan. After nearly being killed at Michael's hand, she knows that she has to do something to stop him.

With the help of a security guard, a half-mad chauffeur, a man with a cat and the daughter of a millionaire, she sets out to defeat Michael. The only problem... she has no idea what she has to do.

Would you like to read a bit of my novel?

Here are some of my favourite excerpts from my novel:


Are you doing NaNoWriMo? How are you going? What is your novel about? Do you have any excerpts to share? If you do please share them in a comment!