Catherine P. Businelle has written for several magazines on a variety of topics, from taking children on motorcycle trips for American Iron Magazine to the influence of parental stereotypes in children's media for Christian Home & School. The ACBL Bridge Bulletin "Bridge with Grandpa" "Bridge is like Math, my childhood nemesis, in that it’s hard for advanced players to remember how hard the first steps were to learn. I felt like a first grader entering an algebra class. Not only did my classmates know more about variables, but they couldn’t comprehend how complicated long division was for me. "At the end of a hand, a fellow player might ask how many spades I’d started with. They might as well have asked what my mom wore to my first birthday party. I generally smiled a lot and faked my way through their well-meant advice, most of which might as well have been given in Chinese for all the information I gleaned from it." AND "Married Partners" "Handling disagreements over bidding and play can often be difficult to do gracefully, no matter whom your partner is. With a friend or acquaintance, however, you will generally show more restraint. It isn’t socially acceptable to harp on an unnoticed discard while playing with your golf buddy. When your spouse is involved, however, and you know that she won’t leave you for a younger player just because you’re occasionally rude about disastrous bidding, it can be harder to bite your tongue and assure her that it was just one hand." Christian Home & School "Media Parents and Real Parents" "Periodically set aside some time to watch your children’s favorite shows and take note of the positive and negative lessons to be learned. Then discuss those ideas with them. "The best way to open the discussion is to ask questions that invite children to see stereotypes themselves. Instead of telling a child that Hugh Neutron is a silly parent, for example, try asking if he’s a realistic character. "You may run into a little eye-rolling when you first start these conversations, because once your child stops to think, it seems obvious to them how far the stereotype is from reality. Do it anyway; getting them to stop and think is often all it takes to expose the lie." CollegeBound Teen "Seven Lessons from Seven College Jobs" "Lesson Three: Setting Limits "When I started my own typing service, I hoped that it would allow me to quit returning to my dorm room smelling like fries every night, but instead I found myself facing a new lesson: how to set limits. "My most regular customer, a business major, not only couldn't type, but couldn't write. I continually had to decide if he really meant to add a comma or spell gene with one 'e.' Besides having to define the line between editing and cheating, I spent too much time rushing to meet other people’s deadlines." FellowScript "Organize Your Freelance Output" "Once you’ve decided what organizational tool you’d like to use, study it properly. It will take time to read a book on Access and patience to sit through an Excel tutorial, but the knowledge you gain will save you hours of frustration later on. Not only will you learn how to use the features you know you need, but the little bonus gizmos you’ll discover often make the entire project more fun." ByLine "Which Comes First: The Market or the Idea?" "Don’t worry; I’m not suggesting that you write about glue gun acquisitions or fish breeding until working at the supermarket seems like more fun. I’m suggesting finding new areas of interest, not forcing yourself to write about boring topics. How can you do that? The first step is to start looking for ideas that fit a variety of markets instead of looking for markets that will accept your favorite kind of ideas. "Instead of coming up with an idea for an article, then plowing through the Writer’s Market until you find a home for it, start at the other end of the equation. Browse a market list or the periodicals section of your library until you find a magazine you can imagine writing for, and then look for ideas based on what areas of interest you and the editor might share." American Iron Magazine "Taking a Kid on the Road" "A leather-clad figure lifts a helmet over his head, adjusts his gloves, and rolls his shoulders. Hearing the front door of the house open, he looks up at the man in the doorway and calls out, 'You 'bout ready? We need to get moving.' "'Get back in here,' his dad answers. 'You forgot to brush your teeth.' Seven-year-old Connor groans and runs inside." Verbatim "Brain Injury and Language" "The interesting thing about the language output of fluent aphasics is that it sounds like normal speech, but doesn’t make any sense. If you overheard a Portuguese person with this disorder attempting to speak his native language but you didn’t understand Portuguese yourself, you might never know he had a problem. Fluent aphasics mimic the melody of language so well that it can take a few moments to realize that they're speaking gibberish." Mothering Magazine "Mom's Breastaurant" "One mother, given directions to the Mom’s Breastaurant booth as she cradled a tiny newborn, said that she had planned to walk “all the way back” to her car, several blocks away, to nurse. The tears in her eyes expressed her relief at knowing she could breastfeed in comfort nearby. "It’s easy to feel frustrated about the difficulties of nursing in a society that often sees breasts only as sexual objects, instead of as the best way to nurture and feed a baby. However, it can seem difficult to step up to the plate and do something about it. Nonie Veccia’s energetic, selfless dedication to Mom’s Breastaurant should inspire us all to make positive changes in our world." (For more information, see www.momsbreastaurant.com.)