For many aging couples, the family home—once a bustling hub of activity filled with the laughter and chaos of childrearing—now feels like an oversized remnant of years past. As time marches on and children leave the nest, the empty rooms and unused spaces can become a burden, both emotionally and practically.
This is the reality faced by countless homeowners in Southern California and beyond: the realization that their cherished two-story home no longer fits their current lifestyle and needs.
However, the prospect of downsizing, or “right-sizing,” can be daunting, fraught with a complex mix of sentimentality, uncertainty, and fear of change.
This article aims to guide you through this transformative journey, illuminating the path from the home of your past to the home of your present and future. By focusing on the emotional and practical aspects of downsizing, we will explore how this transition can be not just a necessary adaptation but a joyful embrace of a new chapter—one that prioritizes experiences, comfort, and simplicity. As we delve into the strategies for selecting and adapting to a smaller home, we invite you to approach this process with a spirit of optimism and renewal, recognizing that the true essence of “home” lies not in square footage but in the life you create within those walls.
Are you ready to embark on this journey of simplifying your space and amplifying your life?
Understanding the Emotional Journey
For many elderly homeowners, the decision to downsize from a long-lived family home is not just a practical one; it is an emotional journey that requires acknowledging and processing a range of complex feelings. The sentimental value attached to a home cannot be overstated—it is a repository of memories, a witness to the joys and sorrows of family life, and a symbol of stability and comfort. As you embark on this journey, it is essential to:
Recognize the significance of your emotional attachments:
Your home is more than just a physical structure; it is a sacred space that has housed your family’s traditions, milestones, and everyday moments. Acknowledging the depth of your emotional connection to your home is the first step in preparing yourself for the transition.
Allow yourself to feel the full spectrum of emotions:
Downsizing can trigger a mix of feelings, from sadness and nostalgia to excitement and relief. It is normal to experience a sense of loss when letting go of possessions and the spaces they once occupied. Embrace these emotions as a natural part of the process and give yourself permission to feel them fully.
Focus on the opportunities that lie ahead:
While it is important to honor the past, it is equally crucial to embrace (and prepare for) the future. Downsizing presents a chance to simplify your life, prioritize your well-being, and create new memories in a space that better suits your current needs. Shift your perspective from what you are leaving behind to what you are gaining—a home that enhances your quality of life and allows you to focus on what truly matters.
Create tangible reminders of your cherished memories:
To help cope with the emotional aspects of downsizing, consider preserving your memories in a meaningful way. Create memory books or digital photo albums that showcase the special moments and traditions tied to your family home. You may also find comfort in commissioning hand-drawn illustrations of your, which can provide you with a beautiful, personalized keepsake to treasure in your new space.
Seek support from loved ones and professionals:
Remember that you do not have to navigate this emotional journey alone. Lean on the support of family and friends who can offer a listening ear, practical assistance, and encouragement throughout the process.
By acknowledging and addressing the emotional aspects of downsizing, you lay the foundation for a more positive and fulfilling transition. Remember that your home, no matter its size, reflects the love, memories, and experiences you carry within you. As you prepare to embark on this new chapter, trust in your resilience and ability to create a meaningful and joyful life in your new space.
Practical Steps to Downsizing
Embarking on the downsizing journey can feel overwhelming, but with a methodical approach and the right support, you can navigate this process with greater ease and confidence. Here are some practical steps to guide you through the transition:
Start with decluttering:
Begin by sorting through your belongings, deciding what to keep, donate, or discard. Consider the items that truly hold value and meaning to you and let go of those that no longer serve a purpose in your life. Ask yourself: “Does this item bring me joy or enhance my quality of life?” If the answer is no, it may be time to part with it.
Browse for new homes that align with your needs:
When choosing your new, downsized space, prioritize your current health requirements and lifestyle preferences. Look for a home with features that promote accessibility and comfort, such as single-level living and ample natural light. In doing so, we can showcase homes that have the features mentioned and many more. Consider the proximity to healthcare facilities, social activities, and amenities that are important to you. When partnering with The Whitney Team, we provide you complimentary access to RealScout.
Plan your move strategically:
Timing is key when it comes to a successful move. Start planning well in advance, giving yourself ample time to sort through your belongings, make necessary arrangements, and coordinate with professionals. Consider hiring experienced movers who specialize in assisting seniors or enlist the help of family and friends to make the process more manageable.
Prepare your long-time home for sale:
To maximize the value of your current home, take care of any deferred maintenance tasks and tackle those long-overdue items on your honey-do list. Simple updates like applying fresh paint in neutral colors, replacing outdated flooring, and enhancing curb appeal can make a significant difference in attracting potential buyers.
Seek assistance from professionals:
Remember, you don’t have to navigate this process alone. All of us here at The Whitney Team are here to offer personalized support and guidance throughout your downsizing journey. From helping you find the perfect new home to coordinating the sale of your current one, our team is dedicated to making this transition as smooth and stress-free as possible.
Remember, downsizing is not about sacrificing your quality of life; it’s about simplifying your surroundings to focus on what truly matters. By approaching this process with intention, preparation, and a positive outlook, you’ll be well on your way to creating a home that supports your well-being and enhances your daily life.
Maximizing Your New Space
As you settle into your downsized home, it’s essential to make the most of your new, smaller space. By incorporating multifunctional furniture, personalizing your surroundings, and implementing innovative storage solutions, you can create a comfortable and efficient living environment that suits your needs and reflects your unique style.
When selecting furniture for your new home, opt for pieces that serve multiple purposes. For example:
- A coffee table with built-in storage compartments can provide a place to store remote controls, magazines, or even extra blankets, while also serving as a surface for snacks or drinks during family gatherings.
- An expandable dining table can accommodate guests when needed, but can be easily reduced in size for everyday use, saving valuable floor space.
- A sofa bed or Murphy Bed can transform your living room into a guest room when family or friends come to visit, without the need for a dedicated spare bedroom.
By choosing furniture that adapts to your needs, you can ensure that your downsized space remains functional and versatile.
Personalizing your new home is key to making it feel like your own.
Display cherished family photos, artwork, and mementos that evoke happy memories and showcase your personality. Remember that hand drawn photo of your previous home? Frame it and display it front and center! You could also consider creating a gallery wall featuring your favorite images or curating a shelf with meaningful objects that tell your story. By surrounding yourself with items that hold special significance, you’ll cultivate a sense of belonging and comfort in your new space.
To maximize storage without cluttering your home, explore innovative solutions that make use of vertical space and hidden areas. Install shelving units that reach from floor to ceiling, providing ample room for books, decorative items, and storage baskets. Utilize the space beneath your bed with low-profile storage containers or invest in a bed frame with built-in drawers for extra bedding and clothing. In the kitchen, consider installing pull-out pantry shelves or hanging pots and pans on a ceiling rack to free up cabinet space.
Another effective strategy for maximizing space is to regularly reassess your belongings and declutter as needed. Every few months, take the time to review the items in your home and ask yourself if they continue to serve a purpose or bring you joy. By letting go of unnecessary possessions, you’ll maintain a clutter-free environment. This ensures that your downsized home remains organized and manageable.
Remember, maximizing your new space is an ongoing process. As your needs and preferences evolve, don’t hesitate to adjust your living environment. Embrace the flexibility and adaptability that comes with downsizing and allow your home to grow and change with you over time.
By thoughtfully selecting multifunctional furniture, personalizing your space, and implementing smart storage solutions, you’ll transform your downsized home into a haven that supports your well-being and enhances your daily life. Embrace this new chapter with optimism and creativity, knowing that a smaller space doesn’t mean sacrificing comfort or style—it simply means making the most of every square foot and focusing on what truly matters to you.
Living Larger in a Smaller Home
Embracing a minimalist mindset is key to appreciating and enjoying the simpler lifestyle that comes with downsizing. By focusing on the essentials and letting go of unnecessary possessions, you’ll discover a newfound sense of freedom and contentment in your smaller space. Remember, living larger isn’t about the square footage of your home, but rather the richness of your experiences and the quality of your relationships.
To maintain an active and fulfilling life in your downsized home, prioritize engaging in hobbies, building community connections, and creating meaningful experiences. Consider the following suggestions:
Explore new hobbies or rediscover old passions:
Downsizing presents an opportunity to dedicate more time and energy to the activities that bring you joy. Whether it’s painting, gardening, or learning a musical instrument, pursuing your interests will keep you mentally stimulated and emotionally fulfilled.
Engage with your local community:
Seek out opportunities to get involved in your neighborhood or town. Join a book club, volunteer at a local charity, or participate in community events. By forging connections with others who share your values and interests, you’ll build a strong support network and a sense of belonging in your new surroundings.
Prioritize experiences over possessions:
Rather than focusing on accumulating material goods, invest in creating meaningful experiences with your loved ones. Plan regular outings, such as picnics in the park, visits to museums, or day trips to nearby attractions. These shared experiences will strengthen your relationships and create lasting memories that enrich your life far more than any physical possession could.
When considering your downsizing options, it’s worth exploring age-qualified communities that cater to the needs and interests of older adults. These communities often offer a wide range of extracurricular activities and amenities designed to promote an active, engaged lifestyle. From fitness classes and educational workshops to social clubs and organized outings, these communities provide ample opportunities to pursue your passions and form new friendships with like-minded individuals.
In addition to the social and experiential benefits, downsizing to a smaller home also offers practical advantages, such as lower maintenance and reduced costs. With less space to clean, maintain, and furnish, you’ll find yourself with more time and energy to devote to the activities and people that matter most to you. Moreover, a smaller home often translates to lower utility bills, property taxes, and insurance premiums, freeing up financial resources that can be allocated towards travel, hobbies, or other enriching experiences.
The reduced stress and increased happiness that come with a simpler, more manageable lifestyle cannot be overstated. By letting go of the burdens of maintaining a larger home, you’ll create space in your life for greater peace of mind and contentment. Embrace the opportunity to focus on what truly brings you joy, whether it’s nurturing relationships, pursuing personal growth, or simply savoring the quiet moments of everyday life.
Remember, downsizing is not about sacrificing your quality of life, but rather about redefining what it means to live well. By adopting a minimalist mindset, staying active and engaged, and prioritizing experiences over possessions, you’ll discover that living larger in a smaller home is not only possible, but immensely rewarding. Embrace this new chapter with open arms, knowing that the best is yet to come.
Downsizing to a smaller space can be a liberating experience—a chance to simplify, focus on what truly matters, and amplify the joys of life. By decluttering possessions, selecting a home that aligns with current needs, and personalizing the new space, aging homeowners can transform this period of change into an exciting opportunity for growth and renewal. The key lies in embracing the change with optimism: view downsizing not as a loss, but as a doorway to a more fulfilling lifestyle.
With practical strategies for making the most of smaller living quarters and a mindset that prioritizes experiences over possessions, this next chapter can be filled with confidence, excitement, and a renewed sense of purpose. Remember, less space doesn’t mean less life—it means more room for what brings genuine happiness and contentment. So take a deep breath, trust in the journey, and get ready to simplify your space and amplify your life.
Reach out to us today, and let’s get you on the right path to right-sizing.


The French poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé was born in Paris in 1842 into a bourgeois family of civil servants. He was expected to follow into his father and grandfather's profession but, influenced by Charles Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier, he turned to writing poetry. After leaving school he went to England, and while in London, he married Marie Gerhard. They had two children, Geneviève and Anatole, who died at the age of eight.
Mallarmé taught English in Tournon, Besançon, and Paris until his retirement in 1893. Throughout Mallarmé's life his literary output was sparse and deliberate. His first poem was published when he was twenty-four. The famous "L'après-midi d'un faune" appeared in 1865, but between 1867 and 1873 his principal poems were left unfinished. From the 1880s he was at the center of a group of French artists that included Édouard Manet and Paul Valéry. Mallarmé died in Valvins, Seine-et-Marne, in 1898. His modernist masterpiece, "Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard" (A throw of the dice will never abolish chance), was published posthumously in 1914.
Unique Approach to Fashion
Mallarmé's relationship with fashion is marked by his association with the exponents of two literary movements of the late nineteenth century, the Parnassians and the symbolists. However, his is not the use of clothing or accessories as mere metaphors or symbols for character or sentiment, which occupied the literary output of his contemporaries. Mallarmé's singular contribution lies in his recognition of fashion as a social, cultural, psychological, and economic force in itself, and in the way in which this recognition finds poetical expression in different forms of writing, from occasional quatrain, via complex prose poem, to journalism.
La Dernière Mode
Mallarmé's artistic expression found its most potent voice in journalism. In the autumn of 1874 he single-handedly wrote and edited a magazine entitled La dernière mode (The latest fashion). It was composed of a number of stylistically well-defined columns on such topics as couture, accessories, and hair and makeup. The poet wrote each of these columns under different female pseudonyms, slipping easily into each mode and adopting, with a mixture of reverence and irony, various poetical voices as well as mannerisms of the commercial prose of the Second Empire.
Albeit short-lived-only eight issues were published before it went into receivership-the richly illustrated La dernière mode became a gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art on fashion and style, crossing and quoting artistic disciplines in the spirit of the fin de siècle.
Fashion as Cultural Form
Mallarmé's development from a symbolist poet to a modernist writer, from an esoteric style to pared-down aesthetics, finds its unique expression in his attitude to fashion, to a mode dressing as well as sociocultural existence. There are, of course, a number of central subjects around which he built respective works, but fashion-with its haptic qualities, its shaping of the human form, and its metaphoric potential-appears as one of the most significant themes in Mallarmé's oeuvre. In what proved to be the last issue of La dernière mode (20 December 1874), he concluded, "No! for a compendium that intends to view fashion as art, it does not suffice to say 'this is what is worn'; one has to state 'this is the reasoning behind it'" (p. 2).
Here is Mallarmé's credo in regard to fashion. It is not simply an industry that creates material objects, nor is it a medium for a merely typified, gendered, or socialized representation. Fashion is a cultural form that demands critical investigation on a par with other artistic media, like plays, paintings, or novels. Moreover, it possesses a unique structure that lends itself to a redefinition of habitual rules and expressions. Mallarmé realized that, just as he used and reused a hermetic, musical vocabulary, where words take on very different meanings or are brought into an alternative syntax, so fashion invents its own forms anew each season. The look of a familiar piece of clothing is changed beyond recognition, or its use is radically redefined. As a structuralist before the advent of structuralism, Mallarmé found in fashion a willful and skillful reshaping of formal appearances, and thus a technique that he himself pursued from his early, fragmentary poems (such as "Hérodiade" of 1869) to the open spaces of his late, formal experiment, "Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard."
Fold and Word
Mallarmé's work is characterized by a quest for pictorial composition and at the same time by a forceful rejection of the subject. In fashion he found both his visual stimulus, through the colorful, sweeping fabric of French couture between the 1850s and 1890s, and a subject matter that was regarded as marginal within the contemporary cultural hierarchy. The topic of fashion allowed Mallarmé to work against narratives, to remain resolutely subjective within the nonlinear, associative rhythms of his verses, but, simultaneously, to remove himself from the sublime, weighty subjectivism that was considered necessary for symbolist poetry.
La dernière mode ran a dialogue with imaginary correspondents, where the poet celebrated the "profound nothingness" that pervades the life and sartorial consumption of the bourgeois female. Unlike Gustave Flaubert, Mallarmé used the seemingly empty existence and ennui of a female readership not for narrative drama, as Flaubert did with the character of Emma Bovary, but for a concentration on formal questions. Fashion, seen as insignificant and ephemeral by the cultural status quo, thus becomes a carte blanche for a poetically elaborate, yet curiously precise, description of fabrics, ribbons, pleats, and folds, as the journal aimed at fulfilling its commercial function as a source of sartorial information.
The fold in particular operates, as pli modal-an abstract fold that primarily exists in semantic form-in a material analogy to syntactic or stylistic innovation. Thus, a notion is either hidden within the surface of a specific word, or else one word refers to another unknown one and needs to be drawn from the depth of the linguistic fabric through combinative or connotative efforts. Fellow poets credited La dernière mode with the "invention of the word" (Burty, p. 587); indeed, the vocabulary in the journal surpasses the mere description of clothes or accessories and moves to constitute fashion in the abstract, as a verbal equivalent of sartorial innovations in contemporary haute couture.
The professed independence from the material aspect of clothing, and the deliberate ignorance vis-à-vis stylistic minutiae, rendered La dernière mode less than commercially viable among competitive fashion journals. However, the formal yet radical nature of its prose (such as the metaphysical musings of Marguerite de Ponty in her column, "La Mode") and the irony of its stylistic quotations (repeated references by Miss Satin to Charles Frederick Worth and Émile Pingat) create a unique and extended text that floats unconstrained by a specific stylistic period. Indeed, the prose speaks as eloquently of the sartorial as of the literary form.
A further removal from the habitual approach of the artist to fashion, whether critical or celebratory, occurs through the exclusive choice of female pseudonyms. This technique was not new in itself. Honoré de Balzac and Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, for example, preceded Mallarmé as "female" fashion journalists in the 1830s and 1840s. Yet Mallarmé does not hide behind or subsequently disavow his feminine personae but becomes them. A mental cross-dressing allows the poet to indulge in the transitory and ephemeral, unobserved by the patriarchal mainstream, and thus free to subvert a commercial medium for the dissemination of formal experiments to a readership hitherto unaccustomed to such an approach.
Personal and Historical Impact
At the end of his life Mallarmé reminisced about the literary significance and the personal impact of the autumn of 1874. "I tried," he said, "to write up myself clothing, jewelry, furnishings, even columns on theaters and dinner menus, a journal La dernière mode, whose eight or ten issues still, when I undress them from their dust, help me to dream for a long time" (Correspondence, Vol. 2: Paris: Gallimard, 1965, p. 303). Such remembrance, aided by fashion's mode of existence in modernity as quotations from a past source book, prepared the ground not just for Marcel Proust's literary form, but also for Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history. The view of fashion in Mallarmé's writing, therefore, accounts for the coming hallmarks of modernity itself.
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Burty, Philippe. Undated letter. In Stephane Mallarme: Correspondence. Vol. 4: 1890-1891. Paris: Gallimard, 1973.
Deleuze, Gilles. Le pli: Leibniz et le baroque. Paris: Minuit, 1988.
Dragonetti, Roger. Un fantôme dans le kiosque: Mallarmé et l'esthétique du quotidien. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1992.
Faye, Jean-Pierre. "Mallarmé: l'Écriture, la mode." Change 4 (1969): 56-57.
Fortassier, Rose. Les Écrivains français et la mode: De Balzac à nos jours. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1988.
Kleinert, Annemarie. "La Dernière Mode: Une tentative de Mallarmé dans la presse féminine." Lendemains 5, nos. 17-18 (June 1980): 167-178.
Lecercle, Jean-Pierre. Mallarmé et la mode. Paris: Séguier, 1989.
Lehmann, Ulrich. Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.
Lewis Shaw, Mary. "The Discourse of Fashion: Mallarmé, Barthes, and Literary Criticism," Substance 68 (1992): 46-60.
Mondor, Henri. Vie de Mallarmé. Paris: Gallimard, 1941.
Nectoux, Jean-Michel Un clair regard dans les ténèbres: Peinture, musique, poésie. Paris: Editions Adam Biro, 1998.
Peyré, Yves, ed. Mallarmé, 1842-1898, un destin d'Écriture. Paris: Gallimard/Réunion des musées nationaux, 1998.
Thibaudet, Albert. La poésie de Stéphane Mallarmé. Paris: Gallimard, 1912.


Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is, by far, one of the most amazing books I have ever read. A break from the increasingly popular and utterly annoying teenage Vampire novels, Grahame-Smith takes the history of the United States of America, and adds both a unique and incredibly interesting twist: Vampires.
Before deciding to read this book, I kept avoiding it because of the want-to-be authors that keep publishing crappy Vampire novels. I expected to find a loosely put together written novel whose sole benefit was to bring in money. A friend convinced me to give this book a chance; I could not put it done and finished in a few short hours.
The execution of this novel was flawless. Grahame-Smith brilliantly intertwines our history with the story of Early American Vampires. My father taught me a lot about Lincoln growing up, but at times, I would forget that this was a work of fiction. The book is written in such a way that you think the reason you exist today is because of a notorious Vampire Hunter, Abraham Lincoln. With pictures throughout the book to act as "supporting evidence," Grahame-Smith should be highly commended for this literary masterpiece.
If you are looking for a great thrill ride, definitely pick yourself up a copy of Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.


In July of 1984 the first installment of the Lone Wolf gamebook series, Flight from the Dark, was published, spawning a franchise that would sell over ten millions copies to date.
The set up is classic: you are Lone Wolf, the only surviving Kai Lord – an order of holy warriors blessed with psychic and physical powers that opposes the Darklords. It’s a simple tale of good guys versus bad guys, but the implementation is masterful.
Created by young musician Joe Dever together with his artist friend Gary Chalk, the series would stamp upon young minds a narrative, a look and an identity that would shape their idea of fantasy for years to come. Sadly, by the late ‘90s the game book market withered, prematurely ending the series.
In recent years however there has been renewed interest in the series thanks to Project Aon, a fan-created site that re-released the books in HTML, with permission of Joe Dever, who approved the free dissemination of his work online as a gift to the fans.
Seventh Sense is a free, fan-made playing aid for the Project Aon versions of the Lone Wolf gamebooks. It automates and aids the playthrough, tracking all stats, rolls, skills, items and page-jumping, while also allowing players to greatly customize the book’s rules, art style and even seek special challenges.
The books are intended to be played in order, as one huge adventure. In the first one you create your character, rolling stats, choosing skills (Camouflage, Hunting, Weaponskill, Healing, Mind Blast, etc) and your initial equipment. These choices will all greatly impact the options available during your quest.
Each subsequent book allows you to keep your current equipment and choose one extra skill, taking Lone Wolf all the way from an apprentice to a Grand Master with mythical weapons and powerful spells.
The series spawns 29 books, and as of this writing Seventh Sense supports up to book 17, The Deathlords of Ixia, and it’s regularly updated with more content.
To return to Lone Wolf after a few decades away is a pleasurable experience. The adventures of the last of the Kai Lords are short, sharp shocks: full of daring escapes, sudden deaths, exotic locales, crazy plots and fantastical elements that enchant young minds and cloud old ones with a perfect miasma of nostalgia. Neanderthal


By Tim Watt |
March 23, 2015
The literary world let out a collective sigh of despair on March 12, as Terry Pratchett, author of the beloved series of fantasy novels "Discworld," passed away. Pratchett was one of millions of seniors who battle with Alzheimer's disease and dementia every year. His passing at 66 highlights the prevalence with which the ailment affects the older demographic, and further cemented the importance of the myriad research being conducted regarding treatment and detection options.


Neptune, The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings
by Craig L. Symonds
Craig L. Symonds, winner of the 2015 RADM Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature, will be received by the New York Commandery and speak at our Annual Book Award dinner, to be held at the Racquet & Tennis Club in New York City on Wednesday evening, 18 November 2015.
• A riveting story of the greatest sea-borne assault in human history
• Discover the often overlooked naval arm of the D-Day invasion just in time for the 70th anniversary of the invasion
• Expertly told by one of the foremost naval historians writing today, author of the highly acclaimed Battle of Midway
Craig L. Symonds is Professor of History Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy. He is the author of many books on American naval history, including The Battle of Midway and Lincoln and His Admirals, co-winner of the Lincoln Prize in 2009.
Seventy years ago, more than six thousand Allied ships carried more than a million soldiers across the English Channel to a fifty-mile-wide strip of the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable human tragedy. The sea of crosses in the cemetery sitting today atop a bluff overlooking the beaches recalls to us its cost.
Most accounts of this epic story begin with the landings on the morning of June 6, 1944. In fact, however, D-Day was the culmination of months and years of planning and intense debate. In the dark days after the evacuation of Dunkirk in the summer of 1940, British officials and, soon enough, their American counterparts, began to consider how, and, where, and especially when, they could re-enter the European Continent in force. The Americans, led by U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, wanted to invade as soon as possible; the British, personified by their redoubtable prime minister, Winston Churchill, were convinced that a premature landing would be disastrous. The often-sharp negotiations between the English-speaking allies led them first to North Africa, then into Sicily, then Italy. Only in the spring of 1943, did the Combined Chiefs of Staff commit themselves to an invasion of northern France. The code name for this invasion was Overlord, but everything that came before, including the landings themselves and the supply system that made it possible for the invaders to stay there, was code-named Neptune.
Craig L. Symonds now offers the complete story of this Olympian effort, involving transports, escorts, gunfire support ships, and landing craft of every possible size and function. The obstacles to success were many. In addition to divergent strategic views and cultural frictions, the Anglo-Americans had to overcome German U-boats, Russian impatience, fierce competition for insufficient shipping, training disasters, and a thousand other impediments, including logistical bottlenecks and disinformation schemes. Symonds includes vivid portraits of the key decision-makers, from Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill, to Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who commanded the naval element of the invasion. Indeed, the critical role of the naval forces--British and American, Coast Guard and Navy--is central throughout.
In the end, as Symonds shows in this gripping account of D-Day, success depended mostly on the men themselves: the junior officers and enlisted men who drove the landing craft, cleared the mines, seized the beaches and assailed the bluffs behind them, securing the foothold for the eventual campaign to Berlin, and the end of the most terrible war in human history.
Reviews and Praise for Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings
"Excellent... Symonds has produced a terrific account of the heroic role the U.S. Navy played in making the D-Day landings a success." --Charleston Post and Courier
"Symonds employs his extensive knowledge and skill at synthesis to turn an oft-told story into vibrant on-the-scene history... Symonds touches all the bases... The landing is especially well narrated. Solid writing has the reader feeling the suspense, where the outcome is already known." --Sea History
"[A]n impressive account... Most accounts of the D-Day invasion start with landing craft opening their gates as courageous men rush out into German gun fire, Symond's brilliant narrative starts years earlier with American entry into WWII. The reader gains an incredible appreciation for the logistical masterpiece completed by Allied leaders and the careful, all-important buildup of the 'special relationship' between the United States and Great Britain... a must read for this year's important 70th Anniversary of D-Day." --Breitbart.com
"Neptune is unquestionably a work that makes major contributions to the field... a finely written piece of history... It is very readable and hard to put down." --Proceedings
"In this well-written, engaging volume, Craig Symonds, Professor Emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy, makes an original contribution to the historiography of the Normandy landings... Symonds masterfully mixes the big picture, operational descriptions with colorful, illuminating firsthand accounts from the sailors.... Symonds has an especially strong feel for naval command. His personal profiles and assessment of the key leaders such as Bertram Ramsay, Alan Kirk, Morton Deyo, Philip Vian, and Don Moon are arresting and unforgettable. One suspects that his analysis of these important personalities will substantially influence and inform subsequent generations of Neptune historians...Neptune is a truly original and important contribution, one that substantially rounds out our understanding of the Normandy invasion." --Robert C. McMannus, Journal of Military History
"[A] fascinating, multi-layered story... Symonds has an excellent eye for telling details and arresting quotes from the ordinary participants." --Daily Beast
"This superb volume is the first comprehensive account in a half century of the vital naval operations that lifted the liberating legions to France, landed them on D-Day, and supported them. Craig Symonds ranges with easy command from often fractious strategic planning sessions to the searing experiences of young sailors in the crucible of fire-drenched beaches.Neptune is at once an important scholarly contribution and a great read." --Richard B. Frank, author of Guadalcanal and Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire
"Craig L. Symonds, one of America's greatest military historians, scores a triumph withNeptune. In this masterpiece of historical scholarship Symonds sheds new light on how FDR mobilized the U.S. Navy for the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. His archival work is dazzling. Highly recommended!" --Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University, CBS News Historian, and author of The Boys of Point du Hoc
"Craig Symonds brings to vivid life the Allied assault from the sea on Normandy. He has written a clear, comprehensive, and often thrilling account of the massive and complex invasion--a tale of heroism and folly, genius and muddle. Neptune is an invaluable contribution to the history and literature of D-Day." --Evan Thomas, author of Sea of Thunder and Ike's Bluff
"The prose is distinguished by the author's ability to simultaneously present an academic history supported by excellent research while captivating the reader with the individual narratives of soldiers and sailors who participated in the operation. Symonds has crafted an enjoyable and informative read for anyone interested in the history of WWII." --Publishers Weekly
"Acclaimed naval historian Symonds has the teacher's patient touch and big-picture knowledge to accessibly present the truly incredible scope of this largely naval endeavor." --Kirkus Reviews
"Neptune is a sweeping account . . . Symonds is lucid and incisive. His writing is as good as Rick Atkinson's . . . accessible, sharp and faithful to the human foibles of the protagonists whose plans and courage bore fruit on June 6, 1944." --ARMY
"In Neptune, prolific naval historian and longtime US Naval Academy professor (now emeritus) Craig Symonds describes in fascinating detail Allied planning and preparation for the defeat of Germany in 1944 . . . Neptune fills a lacuna in D-day literature by its unusually thorough treatment of the naval requirements for the successful invasion of northern Europe. And, too, his extensive use of archival materials and relevant personal papers and documents allows him to elucidate the naval planning, preparation, and organization for Operation Neptune in far greater detail than do previous works." --Michigan War Studies Review
"[A] magnificient achievement. By framing the primary problem of the Normandy Invasion as the landing, Symonds is able to show one element that made the success of the invasion so impressive. The book is well researched and cited, and is a strong addition to an already crowded historiography. It certainly merits a thorough read." --On Point: The Journal of Army History
Ordering Info: Amazon


So this year, I thought and I thought, I wrote, and I tossed. Then, I wrote some more. I confess it was a toss up whether I would have something to enter, but I finally have an entry worthy (I think) of the contest.
Here are the rules:
Write a children's story (children here defined as approximately age 12 and under) in which wild weather impacts the holidays! Your story may be poetry or prose, silly or serious or sweet, religious or not, based on Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever you celebrate, but is not to exceed 350 words (I know! So much freedom after the Halloweensie Contest :)) (It can be as short as you like, but no more than 350! Title not included in word count.) Any kind of weather will do: sun, rain, sleet, heatwave, blizzard, tsunami, monsoon, hurricane, hail, tornado, etc! Weather may be atypical for your setting (rain in Maine, frost in Florida), it may be extreme (blizzard instead of regular snow, drought instead of lush greenery), or it may be unheard of (spring flowers in Antarctica, snow in the Sahara, bathing suit weather at the North Pole), but whatever you choose, make us feel the impact on the holidays! The wild weather may be a hindrance, a wish-come-true, a threat, a pleasant surprise, etc. The field is wide open! Have fun! The wilder and wackier the better! No illustration notes please. (And yes, if you feel compelled to submit more than one entry you may, just remember you're competing against yourself!)
Here's my entry, at 342 words:
Here's my entry, at 342 words:
A LITTLE CHRISTMAS WISH
By Margaret Greanias
Jack Jingle wishes he could be a bigger part of Christmas. But he’s too little to help in Santa’s workshop, too little to dress the reindeer, too little to load the sleigh.
It’s Christmas Eve and Jack’s kicking up snow when Santa’s hat tumbles by. Up and away it blows.
No one’s chasing it, so Jack jumps at his chance. He could be the biggest thing since Rudolph!
But first, he needs transportation. He commandeers a toy airplane. BADUMP-A-DUMP-A-DUMP. It’s a bumpy takeoff.
There’s the hat! Near Santa’s workshop!
NEEEOOOOW! Jack buzzes by.
Bernard, dozing at his workbench, startles awake.
“Thanks Jack!” calls Bernard.
Jack doesn’t hear him. His eyes are trained on the hat.
It dances away and darts into the stables.
Jack zooms in after it. He ducks as he enters, swiping left, swiping right. But from his fast-flying plane, the hat’s a blur. Jack exits with a handful of harnesses. JINGLE, JINGLE, JINGLE.
He tosses them to Victor, who’s grooming the reindeer.
“Thanks Jack!” calls Victor.
But Jack’s already out of earshot. He speeds to intercept the hat.
He swerves and swoops, and loop-de-loops. He doesn’t see the bag of presents, waiting for Quigley to haul.
It hitches onto the plane’s wing as Jack barrels by.
Oops. He detours to the sleigh.
“Thanks Jack!” calls Quigley.
But the roar of the engine drowns out everything.
It’s just Jack…and Santa’s hat. Time is running out.
The wind whisks the hat up, up, and up.
Hmmm…can an elf my size climb so high? Then, Jack’s eyes widen. Can Santa deliver Christmas cheers with icicles dangling from his ears?
Jack hunkers down. He twists and turns; his stomach churns. He rockets through clouds, sunshine, stars until…Santa’s hat begins to fall!
Down, down, down it dives – into Jack’s outstretched hands.
“YIPPEE!” Jack shouts.
Back home, he shyly returns the hat.
“Why Jack Jingle!” Santa ho-ho-hos. “Thank you! I shiver to think what Christmas would have been without you.”
Jack’s cheeks grow warm. He gets his Christmas wish at last.
Check out the other fun entries into Susanna's holiday contest. Enjoy!


Read this book before you Teach English Abroad.
The Book of Teaching English Abroad is a must read for anyone preparing to move overseas and change their life forever. As you read you'll hear stories of action packed adventure and some hilarious misfortune as well as some practical advice for all things teaching English.
Rummell Douglas takes you through his 10 year journey from leaving his small hometown in America to teaching and living Abroad in South Korea and Turkey. All the while finding the girl of his dreams.
The Book of Teaching English Abroad will inspire you to explore, dream, and discover a new adventure for yourself.
You'll read about
*Teaching Insights and Anecdotes,
*Types of Students
*Private Lesson Hustling $$$
*Dating and Romantic Relationships Abroad
*Suggestions for Personal Finance Abroad
*Traveling, Vacations, City Breaks and Getting out of Town
*The Ultimate Exit Strategy
The Book of Teaching English Abroad will inspire you to jump on a plane and move somewhere you've never been.


Give your team the insights and knowledge to improve outcomes, ROI, and patient quality of life
And it's easy to see why: Pressure injuries affect patients in all healthcare settings, but the highest incidence is in acute care settings. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reported that 2.5 million hospital patients develop a pressure injury each year, and 60,000 patients die as a direct result of their wounds.
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Download this whitepaper for insights and information about wound care, including:
Pressure Injury Documentation and Assessment: A Guide to State-of-the-Art Staging and Recording of PIs


PSALM 22 (23), Latin Vulgate (Clementine)
Dominus regit me.
PSALM 22 (23).
The Lord is my shepherd.
A psalm for David.
1. Dominus regit me, et nihil mihi deerit:
THE Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing.
2. in loco pascuae ibi me collocavit. Super aquam refectionis educavit me,
He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment:
3. animam meam convertit. Deduxit me super semitas justitiae, propter nomen suum.
he hath converted my soul. He hath led me on paths of justice, for his own name’s sake.
4. Nam, etsi ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es. Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata sunt.
For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me.
5. Parasti in conspectu meo mensam, adversus eos qui tribulant me; impinguasti in oleo caput meum; et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est!
Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly is it!
6. Et misericordia tua subsequetur me omnibus diebus vitae meae; et ut inhabitem in domo Domini, in longitudinem dierum.
And thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days.
KJV Psalm 23 - audio
23:1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
23:2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
23:3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
23:5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Page Revision #5.2R 11-17


Monday, November 11, 2013
"The Big Chaos" is a speech/poem performed by Omar Musa at the very first Google Big Tent event held in Australia, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
Poem written by Omar Musa.
The last line is an interpolation of a line by Jorge Luis Borges.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
Fam & friends, poetry buffs & producers. Aural & mental & sample gold! People told me they liked the book but wanted to hear the poems as I would read them. So I recorded "Parang" at the One Day studio with DJ Joyride. Hear me get my BBC radio voice on. Gwan! Enjoy:
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Review in Overland Literary blog by Ali Alizadeh: http://overland.org.au/blogs/poetry-fiction-reviews/2013/04/portrait-of-poets-as-young-men/
Review in Stash Everything: http://www.stasheverything.com/lifestyle/book-review-omar-musa-parang/
"I savored this. Omar Musa is a special writer with his own beat, cutting through worlds" - Mohsin Hamid, Booker shortlisted author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist
"Never mind page versus stage, this is poetry: listen" - Jeet Thayil, Booker shortlisted author of Narcopolis
"Parang is as brutal as it is delicate, poems romp between the urban landscape and foreign humidities... I love these poems, they are a clarion call to the listless, to take up the parang, or the pen, the instrument of the book and make something happen. A balm for the conflicted, Musa is a rhapsodist like no other" - Tara June Winch, author of Swallow the Air


In 2014 he contributed an article "The Age of Loneliness is killing us" that went viral, big-time. In a manifesto that resonated with people all over the planet, he wrote that "the religion of our time is a celebration of extreme individualism and universal competition". The resulting loneliness, he argued, is a deadly condition that kills as many people as smoking or obesity.
The Guardian and several book publishers wanted more but Monbiot realised he would be researching and writing at his computer in a solitary endeavour for several years and, in a light bulb moment, surmised that music, which brings people together and unites us, would be a much better vehicle to develop these concepts. With this in mind, George wrote some lyrics and given that, as he says himself, there are international treaties to prevent him from singing, he shared his ideas with critically acclaimed Scottish folk singer Ewan McLennan.
After an exciting collaboration via email, this wonderful project took shape. McLennan had carte blanche to do as he wished with the words - some he kept, and some he re-wrote - and his softly understated Scottish brogue lends them a certain earthiness and poignancy. His sparse arrangements feature harmonium, cello, fiddle and banjo to accompany his own fine vocal, guitar and harmonica work to great effect. Each song wrestles with a different issue. "The Child Inside" addresses the fact that a child's area in which they free-range, either on their own or with their friends, has shrunk by 90% in just one generation. For many urban children, any connection with nature is now all but lost.
"Reclaim the Street" is an anthemic celebration of a street party bringing a neighbourhood of strangers together for the first time. "I'm Coming Home" is the voice of a migrant yearning to return home. "These Four Walls" explores those brief moments of connection at checkouts for those elderly folk who are otherwise isolated all day with only the TV for company. “In the aisles, as I wonder, I practice my lines. ‘Did you see the news’ and ‘The weather’s been fine’ But the checkouts have gone and the tills can talk. So I count my change and home I walk.”
For me, the standout is the opener, "Such A Thing As Society": The neo-liberal story we are told we have to live by is that we are selfish, brutal, venally competitive, nasty individuals and yet in reality our capacities for cooperation and altruism are staggering - quite unique in the animal kingdom. "It my friend is the time-honoured lie - there is such a thing as society, it keeps us from losing our minds, it's working and living and laughing together that makes us humankind". The set is perfectly rounded out by a rousing pedal steel guitar-accompanied version of the Pete Seeger classic "We Shall Overcome".


Reading Frenzy ~ An Independent Press Emporium
A selection of hand-picked gems from our downtown Portland store. Minimum order of $8.
(21-23 of 23 items)
The Funeral Papers explores the estranged relationship between Josh and his father, Arnie. The memoir begins at the funeral of Josh's father where Josh receives a packet of his father's writing, which was chock full of short stories, journalistic pieces, oddball poetry, and more. The memoir moves from Josh's writing to Arnie's and back again. This narrative style gives Josh a unique territory in which to explore reasons for his estranged relationship with his dead father.
Originally published in 1982, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies is the first comprehensive collection of black feminist scholarship. Featuring contributions from Alice Walker and the Combahee River Collective, this book is vital to today's conversation on race and gender in America.
In Consensuality, Helen Wildfell and her co-adventurers detail the process for creating or finding a healthy, successful relationship as well as common pitfalls and how to avoid them, like gender identity, sexual boundaries, power struggles, and emotional dysfunction. Overcoming regret and resentment, the authors describe a journey towards a respectful social environment. Their experiences lead to lessons of self-empowerment and communication tips for building healthy partnerships. We recognize their preferences and boundaries. We discuss how those fit with our own preferences and boundaries. Filled with personal descriptions of the complex layers in human interaction, the book combines gender studies with memoir to truly make the personal political.
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Nonlinear analysis of concrete structures using GFEM enrichment strategy with a microplane constitutive model
AbstractOne of the most widespread methods to the nonlinear analysis of structures is the Finite Element Method (FEM). However, there are phenomena whose behavior is not satisfactorily simulated by the standard FEM and this fact has quickened the development of new strategies such as the Generalized Finite Element Method (GFEM), understood as a variation of the FEM. In parallel, nonlinear analysis of concrete structures requires the use of constitutive models that represents the nucleation and propagation of cracks. In this paper it is used an anisotropic constitutive model, based on the microplane theory, which is able to represent the behavior of concrete structures, together with the GFEM approach. These resources are incorporated on the INSANE system (INteractive Structural ANalysis Environment), used in the numerical simulations presented here to demonstrate the feasibility of using the GFEM enrichment strategy, in the nonlinear analysis of concrete structures, with validation made from comparisons with experimental results available in the literature.


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Ephesians 6:10-20, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
In the great book of Ephesians 6:10, Paul starts by encouraging the Believer to “Be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his might” when confronted in battle against such a host of demonic forces, and to stand in the armour of God one must know where the power of the Lord really resides and how to access it, otherwise you are no match for what is set against you in the spirit world and your flesh, ie your passions, affections, desires and lusts.
- Your loins girt about with truth
John 14:6, Jesus said unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life no man comes unto the Father but by me.
John 6:48-56, I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
This is the Truth, that the Blood Sacrifice of Christ is the only way into the Throne Room of the Father. Going to the Cross of Christ with faith in his Blood is the only way you can approach, and partaking of His Body on a daily basis through faith is the only place you will have abundant life and victory. This is not communion as in the Lord’s Supper but a daily walk of faith. This is the faith that the Holy Spirit will honor and move on your behalf to cause Victory, Life and an abundant supply of the Holy Spirit flowing in your spirit.
Hebrews 11:19, Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus, by a new and living way
Hebrews 4:16, Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
- Having on the Breastplate or Righteousness
Isaiah 59:16-19, And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompense. So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
Romans 4:13-16, For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
The Righteousness that come from God is only obtained through faith in the Sacrificed Body of Christ and what he did for us on the Cross, which is the only Sacrifice the Holy Spirit will honor and cause a standard to rise for you, a standard of Righteousness that protects you from the Law of Sin and Death being fulfilled in your members.
Romans 1:16-17, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
- Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Before there is a publishing and spreading of the Gospel there is a time of preparation and learning to publish the True Gospel. A true Soldier of under Christ’s command is properly prepared for battle who knows and understands the armour and weapons he has and has mastered them properly, inasmuch as that the Truth will go forward with True Power and Anointing converting and recompensing evil with the full Judgement of God confirming his Word.
2 Timothy 2:15, Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2 Corinthians 10:6, And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
Isaiah 52:7, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
Isaiah 61:1-3, The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that arebound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.


A new book about Harry Styles
The book about Harry Styles is officially out! Inside its pages, you'll find three fascinating sections. The first one delves into his music, allowing you to immerse yourself in his musical world and understand his creative journey. The second section focuses on his style, revealing his unique taste in clothing and fashion.
The third section is all about his charisma, explaining what makes Harry so attractive. Additionally, the book features stunning images, including the outfits he chose for iconic events like Coachella 2022 and the Met Gala.
If you're a fan of Harry Styles and interested in his music, style, and life, this book is a must-read. Don't miss the chance to learn more about this exceptional star.


Web Development, design, book cover design and layout for Author Sallie Bissell; author of the critically acclaimed Mary Crow adventures.
Nashville native Sallie Bissell is the author of novels of suspense featuring the half-Cherokee prosecutor, Mary Crow. Educated in the Nashville public schools, Bissell graduated from Peabody College and embarked on a career in advertising, where she worked on various media campaigns, including radio spots for the Grand Ole Opry.
Motherhood interrupted her advertising career, and when she returned to her typewriter after raising three children, she devoted herself to writing fiction. An avid horsewoman, she was a ghost writer for Bonnie Bryant’s popular Saddle Club series for young adults, penning seven novels before launching her own adult fiction career.
We were pleased to work with Sallie Bissell in setting up her web home. We also designed new book covers and setup distribution for her Mary Crow Adventure series with IngramSpark.
- Theme Setup and customization
- Graphic Design
- Custom CSS for WordPress
- Basic Search Engine Optimization
- Book Cover design
- Book layout assistance through Pressbooks
- Book Distribution setup through IngramSpark


So, someone asked what books I get royalties on. Here is the list:
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 12
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 3: Artifacts of Felltower
GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2
GURPS Martial Arts (and the POD version)
GURPS Martial Arts: Gladiators
I'll edit later with links.
Now, this is not to say you shouldn't buy my other works - I was paid fairly for them, and the continued sales of them provides incentive for companies to keep offering me work or accepting my proposals. But if you want to buy a book that results in money going to be as a direct result of your payment . . . it's those books, above.


Friends of Thorne Community Wood are inviting families to take part in a fairy house building competition.
The friends are hosting a ‘Fairy Folk’ fun day with fairy & elf themed crafts and a poetry workshop held by visiting poet & children’s author, Addy Farmer.
Judging for the fairy house competition will take place on the day of the event and a ‘secret glade’ will be created within the woodland for the houses.
The fun day is being held on Sunday 14 April between 1.00pm – 3.00pm and is free to attend. Entry to the poetry workshop on the day is also free but there are limited spaces available for this. To reserve a place, book your ticket through Eventbrite: LINK
The Fairy Folk fun day, at the wood off Lock Lane in Thorne, is run by the Friends of Thorne Community Wood in partnership with the Isle of Axholme and Hatfield Chase Landscape Partnership.


Reading is far from being a passive process, it is a constant process of guessing, hypothesising, anticipating and confirming, in which the knowledge “one brings to the text is often more important than what one finds in it” (Grellet, 1982 in Ball & Hockly n.d.). Consequently, the practices in which we involve while reading in a second language (L2) should resemble the practices of reading in the mother tongue (L1) if we intend to make the L2 reading experience an authentic one.
Types of reading strategies
With regards to the approach to reading, there is a distinction between two main types of strategies that readers use when they are faced with a written text: top-down strategies and bottom-up strategies. Top-down strategies use macro-level cues to decode a text in order to acquire a more global understanding of its contents. These cues may include considering the layout of the text, making hypotheses and anticipating contents. Bottom-up strategies involve the decoding of the passage step-by-step from small textual elements like words or phrases. This process was for several years the traditional way of analysing a text and many courses are still based on this approach to reading.
The problem with an exclusive focus on bottom-up strategies is that the individual parts of the text are given more importance than the text as a whole. According to Grellet (in op. cit.), this might encourage reading all texts at the same speed, which might not be appropriate in all cases, and that there would be a reluctance to infer the meaning of sentences and paragraphs from what comes before the text. This author concludes that it is always preferable to start with the overall meaning of a text (top-down strategy), its function and aim, then move towards a more detailed analysis.
What is an authentic text? A different view of ‘authenticity’
There is an important issue to consider when selecting texts for our learners and it is the idea of authenticity. Widdowson (in Ball & Hockly, n.d.) distinguishes between ‘genuineness’ and ‘authenticity’. Genuineness is a ‘characteristic of the text itself and is an absolute quality’ (op. cit.: 32), it is what teachers usually refer to as authenticity. On the other hand, his definition of authenticity is how the reader responds to the text. Not adapting a text would make it ‘genuine’ in Widdowson’s sense. However, a genuine text is not necessarily better than an adapted text. If the reader is allowed to respond as they would do it in real life we have what Widdowson calls an ‘authentic text’.
In which types of reading activities do we involve in real life?
People read for many different purposes and depending on these purposes we may gist to check if the matter is relevant to us, for example when we read our friends’ post on Facebook; we may read to extract the main idea of a product ad to check it is what we are looking for; we may also read to infer the purpose of a literary text for a class assignment; it is also possible to read just for pleasure and while doing so we may find ourselves reacting to the text or creating mental images derived from it. Whatever purpose we may have for reading, the strategy we use will differ and the same should happen when we are learning to read in other languages.
Reading activities in the language class
According to Greenall and Swan (1986 in Ball & Hockly n.d.: 17-18), reading activities can be described as follows:
- Extracting the main idea (read in a general sense to distinguish between important and unimportant information).
- Reading for specific information (looking for the important information needed to perform a specific task).
- Understanding text organization (recognising how sentences are joined together to make paragraphs).
- How paragraphs form a passage and how this organization is signalled.
- Predicting (see what information is new and which one is known so that there is not an overload of new information).
- Checking comprehension (finding specific information in the passage).
- Inferring (when the writer decides to suggest something indirectly, the reader has to infer information).
- Dealing with unfamiliar words (guessing a word or expression by looking for clues in the context).
- Linking ideas (seeing how different words are related to the same idea).
- Understanding complex sentences (seeing how long and complicated sentences can be simplified).
- Understanding a writer’s style (a number of stylistic devices and features are discussed to appreciate why a writer chooses a certain word or expression).
- Evaluating the text (evaluating why the passage was written and the purposes that certain sentences serve).
- Reacting to the text (separating what the writer says from what the reader thinks).
- Writing summaries (the ability to write accurate summaries requires accurate comprehension of the passage).
- Speed reading (to prevent the tendency ‘to stumble on unfamiliar words’ thereby failing to ‘grasp the general meaning of the passage’).
You can choose one or several activities from the ones mentioned above based on your students’ need regarding reading strategies and use it/them with any type of text, but how about assigning an authentic activity to deal with an authentic text and engage students in authentic reading? By authentic activity, I mean a reading activity which relates to the type of text used and how that type of activity is used in real life. Just think about this, what are the odds that you need to summarize an e-mail? Instead, you should probably need to focus on the subject, the author and the main information (who, what, when, how).
The concept of ‘action knowledge‘ (Barnes, 1976) can help us to support the idea of authentic reading. Students come to school with an amount of knowledge they have incorporated during their lives, they have unintentionally learnt many aspects of the world and how to behave in different types of situations. The same is true for their reading experience in their L1. Even younger learners, whose literacy skills in L1 are in the first steps, have grown up watching their family members reading different types of texts and what they do with them. They have watched their older siblings writing a summary of a History book and they have also observed that their siblings do not do the same while reading a comic.
We may also go back to Grellet’s words in the introduction of this post to support the idea of authentic reading, “(the knowledge) one brings to the text is often more important than what one finds in it” (1982 in Ball & Hockly n.d.). Surely, as a reader yourself you can think about types of reading activity that are ‘natural’ to a specific text type or genre, bring that knowledge and the learners’ knowledge into the class and enhance their reading experience both in the L2 and in the L1.
What types of reading activities would you suggest for a short story? For a piece of news? And for a blog post? Write a comment with your suggestions.
* If you want to read about the differences between reading in the L1 and reading in an L2 click this link to my previous post
Ball, P. & Hockly, N. (n.d.). Developing Language Skills in the Classroom. Funiber
Barnes, D. (1976/1992). From Communication to Curriculum. London: Penguin. (Second
edition, 1992, Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann.)


Citation: Turner, J.D. & Mitchell, C.H. (2019). Sustaining culture, expanding literacies: Culturally relevant literacy pedagogy and Gradual Release of Responsibility in K-8 Classrooms. In M. McVee, E. Ortlieb, J. Reichenberg, & P.D. Pearson (Eds.), The Gradual Release of Responsibility in Literacy Research and Practice Vol. 10. (pp. 229-244). Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.