This is broken glass.

Bradley is not ashamed of the war wound he received several days ago in breaking it. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that he was downright proud of his little red badge of courage, a bandage on his wrist after he smashed the window in an attempt to scare squirrels away from their birdseed feast.

It is the first thing he does when he arrives home from squirrel, er, uh, I mean school.

He runs immediately to the dining room window to see if the top has been ripped from the birdfeeder — again.

He bangs on the glass (albeit not so heavily as he used to).

He yells.

He runs outside.



He throws footballs and basketballs in the direction of my dogwood tree from which the feeder hangs.

He dresses in army fatigues and wages hide-out guerilla warfare.

Yesterday I told him the only way to get rid of the squirrels is to get rid of the seeds.

He stood at the window a moment, gazing thoughtfully at a lone squirrel pecking at fallen seeds for the squirrel-equivalent of m&ms in a bowl of trail mix. The feeder was darn-near empty.

“The squirrels will go away soon,” I said.

Bradley silently walked away studying the tops of his shoes. I went back to the studio and was quickly engrossed in designing a wedding invitation.

A moment later, Bradley reappeared by my side. “I refilled the birdfeeder,” he said.

I smiled.



We are squirrel-obsessed.

DESIGN 17: FRONT

DESIGN 17: INSIDE
Message: “May the magic of the holiday season never end…for the greatest of gifts are family and friends,” signed under the message on the right.

DESIGN 17: BACK
Specs: Horizontal wide format 5×7 card on archival linen, folded in the middle. The card opens on the short end resulting in a unique wide format card that opens to a full 5×14 spread.

Do you know this family? Help them win a prize by leaving a comment about their card design!What I love about this design — See the background on the front scrapbook-style photograph of the children? That’s not your standard holiday card background image. That’s their lake! And that’s the family in that boat on their lake! How do you get a holiday card more custom than THAT? It looks like a painting! I also like the wintry swirls on the border, giving the fall photographs a subtle hint of winter. I love the unique wide format layout in the center with not an inch of wasted space. But, other than the front, which I just LOVE, my second-favorite thing about this card is the classic family photograph on the back, given a timeless appeal with a sepia tone and a worn texture. Who can’t help staring back at that beautiful dog’s gaze? Love the dog!

Click here for contest details, but be sure to click your browser’s “back” button to get back to this post so that you can leave a comment about THIS card design, especially if you are commenting in order to help your friends win the prize!

Cheers! And thanks for visiting the blog!

DESIGN 16: FRONT
(The text at the bottom actually showed the boy’s name, replaced with fake type here, but I LOVE his name there!)



DESIGN 16: INSIDE
Message: “Happy holidays” was written in script at the bottom right corner.



DESIGN 16: BACK
Specs: Vertical 5×7 card on archival linen with the inside design spanning the inside spread, folded in the middle.
Do you know this family? Help them win a prize by leaving a comment about their card design!

What I love about this design — I feel a sense of peace just thinking about this card, and a card that gives me a moment of peace during the hectic holidays is one worth keeping out all year long. I love the richness of the front with the browns and textures and the boy’s natural smile. Love the inside with the subtle pulling back of color in that unusual but playful photo choice for a holiday card. The addition of a faux linen texture on the image enhances the actual linen texture of the paper on which it was printed. It’s the whole card design, the flow of it, that gives me that much-desired peacefulness, but the back is my favorite panel. It’s just — *sigh* — a sweet layout for a beautiful family.

Click here for contest details, but be sure to click your browser’s “back” button to get back to this post so that you can leave a comment about THIS card design, especially if you are commenting in order to help your friends win the prize!

Cheers! And thanks for visiting the blog!

A new edition of Metuchen Musings is coming out! Click the book cover above
— or click here —
and turn up the sound for a little slide show of the writers doing what they do best — writing!

This will be the fourth anthology created by the Writers of Metuchen. It includes extraordinary poems by Marcia Holtzman, director of the Writers’ Room at Edgar School, poignant prose by Jennifer Jolly and Joni Scanlon, charming illustrations by Mickey Waring (who provided the painting on the beautiful cover), memoirs of everyday life by Leah Kane (from her charming Raising Kane blog), poetry contributions from young writers Jamie Zwiebel and Lauren Hooghuis, and many more. We’re all so excited to be publishing another book! Check back for more information as the book moves along in the publication process, or, if you’d like to pre-order your copy, books will be available for $10 if purchased through a member of the group, and will eventually be available for purchase on Lulu.com. (But with shipping, you’ll save by ordering through one of us.) Email me if you’d like to pre-order your copy!



The back cover

More information on book availability and Writers of Metuchen events coming soon!

Squirrel swarm = day-at-the-matinee.

Besides these two duking it out for the coveted perch spots on my “squirrel-proof bird feeder,” there were at least two others pecking the ground for cast-offs of the best seeds.

So much for bird-watching, but at least Kaptain Karl is finally entertained. All he needs now is some cat-nipped popcorn.

I LOVE BASKETBALL! This is great for accomplishing three goals: getting action shots of my sweet Gregory, testing out my new camera, and improving my knowledge of taking indoor action pictures with no flash.

Bradley came with me this time and spotted for me so I could get under the basket! Score!

He’s an excellent dribbler! (Is that a word? “Dribbler”?)

That’s Gregory in the very center running fast to the other end of the court. Way to hustle, dude!

Throughout my basketball-mamarazzi-shooting season, this little fellow has been quite the little model, always providing interesting subject material on the sidelines as he watched his older brother on the team. Finally, he got to play too!

Way to shoot, dude!

LOVE the high five from his big brother, made even sweeter by the facts that mom and dad (coaches too!) are in the shot AND none of them had any clue I was shooting from the other side of the court.

Huddle up! (I just like the flow of the composition in this picture. The shape made by the boys’ body positions and the colors makes this an interesting photograph.

We’ve seen a lot of the proverbial “little brother on the sidelines,” how about a BIG brother on the sidelines too? That’s my Bradley watching his little brother’s game and providing lots of praise and encouragement! Thanks Bradley!

Love this shot!

Love the pinky finger!

Here’s another little brother on the sidelines. So far in my basketball series, this one has got to be my favorite!

Nice action shot here, but where in the world is Gregory?

Another nice action shot, but again, NO GREGORY. Hmmmm…

DUDE YOU ARE SO BUSTED!!!
Found him out by the water fountain talking to a GIRL!

CLASSIC!

(That little girl is in his class. Told you he’s tall. But wait just a darn minute here. This is the picture I might have expected, oh, say, long about 10th grade, not FIRST grade! Gregory, you are growing up too fast!!!)

Game over. Time for Bradley to get in a few practice shots, but don’t get too used to those low goals!

DESIGN 15: FRONT

DESIGN 15: INSIDE
Message: “Have an awesome new year!” (The card was signed within the framed photograph in white ink.)

DESIGN 15: BACK
Specs: Vertical 5×7 card on archival linen with the inside design spanning the inside spread, folded in the middle.

Do you know this family? Help them win a prize by leaving a comment about their card design!What I love about this design — FUN FUN FUN!!! I love this one for how colorful it is, showing off the beauty of this mom/daughter team! Non-stop energy with these two during our shoot and they were so sweet together, I wanted to make sure all their friends and family would see it and feel the love as much as I did. The inside is designed like a movie poster, complete with a pretty white-ink autograph (not shown here) within the bottom of the framed image. They both talked about what a good time they have sitting on the couch watching movies so I wanted to give their card a distinct MOVIE feel. I love it!

Click here for contest details, but be sure to click your browser’s “back” button to get back to this post so that you can leave a comment about THIS card design, especially if you are commenting in order to help your friends win the prize!

Cheers! And thanks for visiting the blog!

Innocent enough in black and white on a rainy night
at 40th and 8th.

But …

… in reality …

It’s NEON! Whoa!

By the way, my new camera takes awesome night time photographs. Charlie said this picture makes it look like it’s day time, but that’s just the street lights and the lights from that parking garage.

I think it’s a little bit pretty.

But I’m not so sure a lock was necessary.

I don’t know a whole lot about basketball. Somebody help me. Is that kid in blue fouling my kid? (Mine’s the one in the green shorts.) On the other hand, blue boy did a great job blocking the blocker so that our yellow team could get a good shot! Woo HOO!!!! GO TEAM!

Gregory jumps and shoots! YAY! Despite his height, Gregory is probably the youngest member of the team and is just learning to jump and dribble and shoot. He is still somewhat confused by the aggression of basketball, having been told a million times over the last 7 years not to bump into people or get in anybody’s face.

THIS kid has it down though! He runs fast, shoots, scores, blocks and has a great time hanging with his dad, the coach. And he’s two full years older than Gregory.

Balancing the ball on the head promotes coordination. Fellow mamarazzis TAKE NOTE! When photographing your child’s basketball game, be sure to get the shot of your child looking intently at the coach! (Even if he is balancing a ball on his head at the time.)

Mamarazzis (and dads with cameras too), also be sure to capture the little brother on the sidelines. Helps if the team is in the background!

It also helps to have a big LCD screen on the back of the camera so as to entertain little brother. We mamarazzis have a name for the practice of letting people see the image on the back of the camera — it’s called “chimping.” Used in a sentence: I took the little brother’s picture, then I let him chimp. Kids LOVE to chimp!!

And Gregory LOVES basketball! (Loves it when I put bball posts on my blog too. These pictures are from last week’s game. Can’t wait for today’s game!) Yay Gregory! I love you! And I LOVE to watch your games! Thank you, coaches, for giving of your time and talent so that my child can play and learn! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

Dang squirrel figured out how to get the top completely off too.

Hmphf.