Histories and Mysteries

  THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL THOSE WHO READ THIS BLOG (THANK YOU FOR DOING SO, BY THE WAY!) Now that I've got your attention … For a while now, I have been considering how long I will be blogging in general and blogging at Histories and Mysteries specifically. Since I will most likely start college in the fall, I have been thinking about how I will best use my time. I will undoubtedly have a lot more homework to do, but I also want to be able to concentrate on writing my novels as well as keeping up with the latest political news since that is what I plan on studying. I have decided that I want to be able to write a lot more of my novels. With the schedule at Histories and Mysteries, I don't have a lot of time for that since I spend a lot of time brainstorming and writing here instead. And as much as I love that, writing those articles can take me up to an hour depending on how much research needs to be done. I want to be able to bl...

I mentioned that I was going to post a writing link-up this week. The blogger has not posted the questions as of yet, so for today's article, I am going to post all the books I've read since October. It's a little more than usual, but I had the opportunity to read both nonfiction and fiction, and I am excited to share my opinions on these books with you guys. Sorry, the pictures are out of order! And of course, have a Merry Christmas! I'm not going to forget about that. Books Read The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan   Publisher's Summary   Ephesians: Our Immeasurable Blessings in Christ by John MacArthur   Though attempting to live a transformed life by the power of the Holy Spirit, the church in Ephesus was immersed in an evil culture and surrounded by sin and pagan ways. Discouraged believers needed a reminder of God’s grace and love, of the blessings they had in Jesus Christ, and of their commitment to holiness. Written by...

Unlike the Christmas/Geography articles I have been writing during each December, this is the final part to this series. I don't have a lot of individual Christmas stories, but I could spend years writing about Christmas carols and songs. Also, unlike last year, I will be writing another link-up next week instead of a Christmas-specific article, although I bet the questions are holiday-related. As I mentioned above, today's article is about the next set of my favorite Christmas literature. I have one story and two poems to discuss, so let's get to it. Comment below your favorite Christmas story, poem, or scene (from a book or movie). I'd love to hear about more heartwarming stories and poems centered around this joyous holiday. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry The Gift of the Magi is a short story that is also well-known. Actually, on a field trip to Knott's Berry Farm in December, I was able to see a stage production of this story. It was very book accurat...

Last year, I did an article like this, but this is Part 2. Last time, I discussed the Christmas traditions of China, Bangladesh, Croatia, Egypt, and Madagascar. This year, I have several more countries I'm writing about. "Happy Christmas" in Argentina Because it is below the equator, Christmas occurs during the summer. This is true also for the countries of Australia, Bolivia, and Brazil. In Argentina, houses are decorated with lights, garlands, and wreaths of gold, red, green, and white flowers. Their Christmas tree is usually decorated by December 8th for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic holiday celebrating when Mary was conceived. Any tree may be used as a Christmas tree and sometimes white cotton balls are sprinkled on the tree to represent snow. Another common Christmas decoration is the Nativity scene, also called a pesebre . In Argentina, Christmas cards are not a common form of greeting. Because Argentina is primarily a Catholic count...

Today, I have two blog tags and no header picture for this article. Both of these tags contain questions about Christmas because Christmas is awesome. I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to do this tag, link back to this article. This is going to be a longer article, but comment below your answers to some of these questions. 1. What does Christmas mean to you? Great question. Why don't you go ahead and read my article on that? 2. On the day you’re answering this, how many days until Christmas? I am prewriting this article on August 18th. I am absolutely serious: there are 128 days until Christmas when I'm writing this. For the day this is posted, there are 21 days. Whether 20 or 120 days, I'm already excited for Christmas! 3. What is a super special Christmas tradition for your family? We don't have a lot of special "family" traditions, but my brother and I have a lot of special traditions we uphold each year. We buy each other Chr...

In the last article , I wrote about my writing in my elementary years. Today, I am going to continue that series with how I began to seriously consider writing as a hobby in my teenage years. And first of all, down below I have written about how I came to writing this story. I continued writing random short stories through junior high. In eighth grade, I met one of my closest friends, Triniti (she blogs at TAJ News Blog ), and we corresponded through letters at that time. We mostly talked about books and in one letter I mentioned a play I wrote about the Civil War (the American one, not the Captain America one). She replied with whether we could actually perform the play which we couldn't because it had too many characters to fill. But I told her that I would write a play for her family and my family to perform. I thought to a childhood game/story called "Spy Mission" that I played with a few of my friends. We would have agent names and run around with play weapons...

  It is Thanksgiving weekend once again and that means that I will be putting up my Christmas tree this week (*turns on Christmas music and starts celebrating*). So it's not Christmas quite yet, but the holidays are quickly approaching and I am just feeling all of the excitement. I seriously had a dream that I was writing Christmas cards to my friends in the middle of August. In my article last year, I wrote " 10 Interesting Facts about Plymouth ." In that article, I mentioned how some historians consider Pedro Menéndez de Avilé, a Spanish explorer, to have had the first “Thanksgiving” by inviting the Timucua tribe for a feast in St. Augustine, Florida. In that previous article, I expressed the thought that those who chose to undermine the Pilgrim's Thanksgiving were most likely just trying to ignore the religious significance of this holiday. As our culture becomes more secular, it will continue to do this. But actually when I did research on this story, I re...