Christmas Eve is the perfect time to create family traditions, and we've made it more meaningful by creating Christmas Eve: The Nativity Story in Engravings, Verse, and Song. Christmas Eve brings you the classic nativity story through scriptural verse, beautiful artwork, and music with accompanying lyrics that make it enjoyable to celebrate this joyous season with loved ones. It is the perfect way to gather the family and read the story together.
How to use your astrological sign's birth horoscope to transform every area of your life. Learn how to interpret the positions of the zodiac signs, sun, moon and other planets to better understand yourself and your place in the world around you. The ebook outlines the key principles of astrology and pinpoints ways you can use it as a form of self-help. This ancient art can help you improve many different areas of your life--from your personal and professional relationships to your health, wealth, and well-being. You'll also see how astrology can help you when you need it most, with practical advice about handling life's key moments, including changing jobs, starting a family, coping with financial difficulty, or facing retirement. Written in plain language and with sample case studies and beautiful graphics, Astrology is your essential e-guide to navigating all of life's challenges and opportunities.
A thought-provoking collection of essays on life and living Voices from the Heartland is a celebration of women’s contributions to Oklahoma’s recent past. It records defining moments in women’s lives—whether surviving the Oklahoma City bombing or surviving abuse—and represents a wide range of professions, lifestyles, and backgrounds to show how extraordinary lives have grown from the seeds of ordinary girlhoods. From former Cherokee principal chief Wilma Mankiller, First Lady Kim Henry, novelist Billie Letts, and prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, to OU basketball coach Sherri Coale, the authors share their personal reflections on finding balance as they look back on defining moments in their lives, mull over what they wish they had learned sooner, and convey the wisdom they’ve unearthed on their journeys thus far. Touching on topics from adultery to left-handedness, from losing children to losing perspective, these essays speak from the heart to reveal what it means to be an American woman today. Readers will meet activists and writers, advocates and artists—some of whom are household names, while others work outside the public eye. Voices from the Heartland speaks to readers all across America and demonstrates that women in Oklahoma represent the heart of us all.
A naive adolescent girl from Ohio desperately seeks comfort and safety by moving to her father's home in Illinois after her parents' acrimonious divorce. Reflecting many of the norms and cultural conventions of small-town Midwestern life in the very early 1960s, Peggy struggles to make sense of her middle-class family's disintegration but finds neither lasting comfort nor safety in either environment. Peggy longs to understand her complex new world, even as she struggles to come to terms with the loss of her old life, a happy and stable life gone mad and turned upside down. Peace—forever a process, never a destination--will take many years for Peggy to achieve; but what will meanwhile both help and frustrate her is the young man whom she loves both because of and in spite of himself. Until his premature death at age 75 years, Joe will unknowingly serve as her guide along the journey of a lifetime as he helps, even beyond the scope of this book, to shape her ultimate destiny. Writing in the epistolary genre and under a pseudonym, the author takes the reader deep inside the psyche and perspectives of Peggy and multiple other persons with whom she associates, many of whom can recognize early-on how tenuous her hopes and dreams of a mutual future with Joe will likely be. This is a story of the effects of disintegrating families and reflects the sting of abuse, betrayal, and the perils of alcoholic behaviors. Beyond all that, this is the story of a teenage girl who will at times frustrate you, amaze you, exceed your expectations--and ultimately break your heart. “Letters to Joe” is a jewel that illuminates and reflects adolescent sincerity and tenderness even in the face of teenage humiliation and rejection. A “must-read” for parents, youth, and anyone who has ever pledged to love another human being unflinchingly from first glance to beyond the grave.
Port Said September 1st 1945?"As the ship pulled into Alex, the dockside was a hive of activity. The captain had radioed ahead and so there was a battalion of the Kings' African Rifles (KAR)waiting to disarm us as we disembarked. All these KAR's were standing at the order as a staff officer informed us that we were to be placed under arrest and escorted to Khartoum, here we would contemplate our mutiny for 2 years. Our battalion was still under arms; the sound of the cocking of weapons greeted the officer's threat, and a lone voice asked "And who's going to escort the darkies?" All our officers were powerless, we had the drop on the KAR's, all that was needed was for someone to pull the trigger. ??A Battle Too Far is the true story of Rifleman Henry Taylor 6923581, late 7th Battalion The Rifle Brigade (1stBattalion London Rifle Brigade) and is based on his diaries and recollections as told to his son Lawrence. The Foreword is by Lt-Gen Sir Christopher Wallace Chairman of The Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum in Winchester.??Henry's war began in October 1942 as the 2nd Battle of El Alamein commenced and continued almost non-stop for the next three years. From El Alamein to Tunisia he fought with the 8th Army as they finally pushed Rommel back to the sea. Expecting to return to Britain in preparation for D Day at the last minute plans were changed and they were ordered to Italy instead. Here they found themselves fighting for every inch of land against determined, well dug-in defenders, in conditions often resembling the trenches of WW1. Their reward? Their campaigns forgotten as the world concentrated on the D Day invasion and to be called 'D Day Dodgers' despite enduring some of the heaviest fighting of the war.??As Europe celebrated VE Day Henry's war continued as they raced to Austria to prevent Yugoslav forces annexing Carinthia in the opening shots of the Cold War. Then, as the men around him were de-mobbed, Henry and the rest of the Battalion were sent back to Egypt to protect British interests in the continuing civil unrest. Dejected and fed up it only took one incident to spark a mutiny.??As featured in The Enfield Gazette.
Sydney Herbert Bywater Harris was an adventurer, a man possessed of great courage and charm, who fulfilled every schoolboy fantasy and really did 'live the dream'. The second youngest of seven children, the ordinary life held little appeal for Sydney so, in 1898, at the age of 17, he left home in Ilford for the Klondike gold rush. Arriving too late to make his fortune he decided to join the US Army.Two and a half years later, after seeing action in the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippines Insurrection, Sydney returned to England where he met and married Elsa de Verde Verder, a lady from an affluent Vermont family. A year later Sydney joined the Kings Colonials Imperial Yeomanry, later renamed the King Edward's Horse. Still seeking excitement, in August 1914 he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and in 1916 went to France with 23 Squadron to fly the FE2b. Life expectancy for pilots on the front lines was very short and he was badly wounded while gun-spotting over enemy lines. After several months recovering he was posted to Turnberry as Chief Instructor and on the 13th August 1917, he was posted to Marske (by-the-Sea), with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, to form and command No.2 Fighting School. In 1919 he was awarded the Air Force Cross.But war was not quite finished with Sydney. In 1936, fleeing imminent bankruptcy, he became involved with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Returning back to England he joined the RAFVR (Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve) and when the Second World War broke out he was posted to Turnhouse as Section Controller. This really didn't suit him and, determined to see more action, at the age of 58, he arranged a transfer to France as Adjutant with No 1 Squadron where his duties included liaising with the French Air Force. He later transferred to 1 ATS near Perpignan and was one of the last to leave France with the German Blitzkrieg only a few hours away. Despite his ill health he continued to serve throughout the war and in 1947 became Commander at Marchwood Park where the members of the 'Guinea Pig' club went to recover.A remarkable life led in an era of endless possibilities.Royalties from this book will go to Help 4 Homeless Veterans who support Servicemen and women into suitable accommodation, and empower them to develop a civilian career through their links with employers and other organisations.
Save Yourselves, I'll carry on'. These were the last known words of Herbert Columbine, shouted at his two companions on the afternoon of 22nd March 1918. At 9am that morning, in Hervilly Woods, France, 9 Squadron Machine Gun Corps had come under intense attack from a heavy force of German infantry. Private Columbine took command of an isolated gun, with no wire in front and began firing. As the German onslaught grew and casualties mounted, Herbert and two others eventually became separated from the rest of their Squadron. After several hours it became clear their position would soon be overrun so Herbert told them to escape while they could. Now on his own, Herbert hung on tenaciously, repelling several attacks, each one deadlier than the last. He was only defeated after the Germans bought up air support and dropped a bomb on his position. Herbert Columbine has no known grave.All author royalties from the sale of this book go to the Columbine Statue Fund of which Dame Judi Dench is Patron. This is a project to raise money for a lasting memorial to Herbert Columbine in his home town of Walton onthe Naze, Essex. For more information please visit www.carolemctbooks.info/herbert-columbine-vc/
When Ted asked Brenda to marry him during his Christmas 1939 leave he had no way of knowing how long it would be before the wedding would actually take place. Sent to France as part of Calais Force Ted endures some of the heaviest fighting of the war before finally being taken prisoner. But his ordeal is just beginning as the Germans force march them across Europe with little food and water, casual brutality never far from the surface. Meanwhile Brenda has no idea Ted has even left the country until she begins treating wounded wearing the same regimental insignia as Ted. Frantic with worry she has no way of knowing if he has survived the heroic last stand in Calais. Realising Brenda has no idea whether he is alive or dead Ted hatches a plan to let her know he has survived. Enter Marcel, a young Frenchman trying to find his missing brother, whose escape from Europe places him in Ted's path. Whilst the details of Ted's plan are real, the circumstances and story of how it succeeded are unknown and can only be guessed. The romantic in me would love to think it was someone like Marcel who came to his aid. The Cat & The Nightingale Saga is the docu-drama version of 'The Weekend Trippers', the true story of Rifleman Ted Taylor's war. Written in several volumes The Cat & The Nightingale Saga is based on the diaries and conversations of both Ted and Brenda, and continues throughout the war. 'A Week in May 1940' is the first book and 'The Pencilled Message' is the second. Whilst these are available separately on kindle, I am conscious that print is more expensive so I have combined the first two volumes into one for the print version.
Ted Taylor, 1st Battalion, The Rifle Brigade, was sent to France in May 1940 as part of Calais Force. Initially sent to open up supply lines to the rapidly retreating BEF, they soon found themselves defending Calais against the might of the 10th Panzer Division. Outnumbered by at least three to one they held out for 4 days until they ran out of ammunition and were forced to surrender.??For the next five years Ted found himself part of the huge slave labour force in Poland under the administration of Stalag XXA and Stalag XXB. Life in the POW camps bore little resemblance to the cheerful films of the 1950s with casual brutality never far from the surface. As 1945 began and the war entered its final bloody phase, the POWs dared to believe that at last they might be going home. But fate had one more cruel trick to play.??As the Russians approached rapidly from the east, the terrified Germans evacuated the camps and, in temperatures below -25c, began marching the malnourished, poorly-clothed POWs back across Europe. The infamous 'death marches' to freedom across the frozen, chaotic, war ravaged landscape of Eastern Europe had begun.
The goal of image interpretation is to convert raw image data into me- ingful information. Images are often interpreted manually. In medicine, for example, a radiologist looks at a medical image, interprets it, and tra- lates the data into a clinically useful form. Manual image interpretation is, however, a time-consuming, error-prone, and subjective process that often requires specialist knowledge. Automated methods that promise fast and - jective image interpretation have therefore stirred up much interest and have become a signi?cant area of research activity. Early work on automated interpretation used low-level operations such as edge detection and region growing to label objects in images. These can p- ducereasonableresultsonsimpleimages,butthepresenceofnoise,occlusion, andstructuralcomplexity oftenleadstoerroneouslabelling. Furthermore,- belling an object is often only the ?rst step of the interpretation process. In order to perform higher-level analysis, a priori information must be incor- rated into the interpretation process. A convenient way of achieving this is to use a ?exible model to encode information such as the expected size, shape, appearance, and position of objects in an image. The use of ?exible models was popularized by the active contour model, or ‘snake’ [98]. A snake deforms so as to match image evidence (e.g., edges) whilst ensuring that it satis?es structural constraints. However, a snake lacks speci?city as it has little knowledge of the domain, limiting its value in image interpretation.
For Brenda the relief that Ted was alive and had survived the Defence of Calais was soon replaced by terror as the Germans began bombing London. Night after terrifying night, bombs fell and fires raged as the Blitz became her life, her days spent nursing the victims and her nights avoiding the death from the skies. For Ted life as a POW in Poland was like living in a nightmare from which he couldn't wake up. As the weather worsened so did his living conditions and the lack of news from England only served to add to his sense of isolation. The casual brutality of his guards continued unabated, but their arrogance and lack of compassion only hardened his own resolve to survive. But for Brenda's friend, Pam, life at last began to find meaning. After struggling for months to find something worthwhile to help the war effort an opportunity presented itself that was both unexpected and exhilarating. 'Though Worlds May Change' is the third book in The Cat & The Nightingale Saga and covers the period from July to December 1940. The title, taken from 'They'll always be an England' reflects not only the havoc and chaos that WW2 wrought on innocent lives, but also the stubborn determination to make the best of it and to survive against all the odds.
A split second decision made in the heat of battle in May 1940 changes 3 lives forever. A Second in Time is a story of love, obsession, brutality and courage based on real events and intriguing possibilities. If Rob Davies hadn't made a split decision to try and save his Jewish friend from the wrath of the Third Reich things might have turned out very differently. If he hadn't lost his memory his wife might not have been told he was dead. If he hadn't incurred the wrath of a psychotic SS Major he might never have been sent to the hell of Majdanek concentration camp. A Second in Time takes the reader on an emotional roller-coaster as it races from the hot dusty plains and brutality of the Spanish Civil War through the horrors and mass genocide of the Second World War to the cold indifference of the Gulags of Russia. An 'eternal triangle' with a difference it tells the story of Rob, Anna and Felcia whose lives are turned upside down by war and its aftermath, but whose eventual happiness is shaped by the same events that tried to destroy them.
From the first stirrings of modernism to contemporary poetics, the modernist aesthetic project could be described as a form of phenomenological reduction that attempts to return to the invisible and unsayable foundations of human perception and expression, prior to objective points of view and scientific notions. It is this aspect of modernism that this book brings to the fore. The essays presented here bring into focus the contemporary face of ongoing debates about phenomenology and modernism. The contributors forcefully underline the intertwining of modernism and phenomenology and the extent to which the latter offers a clue to the former. The book presents the viewpoints of a range of internationally distinguished critics and scholars, with diverse but closely related essays covering a wide range of fields, including literature, architecture, philosophy and musicology. The collection addresses critical questions regarding the relationship between phenomenology and modernism, with reference to thinkers such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, Michel Henry and Paul Ricoeur. By examining the contemporary philosophical debates, this cross-disciplinary body of research reveals the pervasive and far-reaching influence of phenomenology, which emerges as a heuristic method to articulate modernist aesthetic concerns.
Discover the hidden meaning of stars in this first introduction to astrology for children. Secrets of Astrology tells you all you want to know about astrology, from the meaning of zodiac signs, to how to read a birth chart. Simple, readable text clearly explains the origins of astrology, the role of the planets, and the significance of the 12 Houses. Young astrologers are guided through all of the different zodiac signs, and can learn more about themselves in the process. Bold, colourful illustrations bring key concepts to life, and make this the perfect addition to your bookshelf. This book is the perfect gift for budding astrologers, or those who love the night sky.
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