My family tromped through the desert every other weekend looking for rocks and as soon my brother, Don, saw a faint slither he’d grab the snake in a snap, hoping he’s gotten hold of it behind it’s neck. He held it up to show it off but mostly to check to see if it was poisonous! This drove my parents crazy! “Check it before you pick it up!” they pleaded, but he never did.
John likes snakes but in my book ‘Gracie’s Grandfather Makes Trouble’ a grandfather looking exactly like him DOES NOT! Gracie’s Grandmother DOES and collects real and fake snakes, so Grandfather comes up with VERY creative ways of dealing with them. Grandfather’s anti-passion for the slinky creatures is as strong as Don’s was for them
See Gracie’s Grandfather Makes Trouble, free another day, as an e book at Amazon.comnancymauerman.com

Have you ever found yourself preaching the principle that is hardest for you, yourself, to learn? Gracie’s grandfather has an enemy who gives him many opportunities to discover in himself that he doesn’t like surprises.
Hopefully we recognize then solve our problems better than he does, and perhaps someday Gracie will too without using snakes.  See Gracie’s Grandfather Makes Trouble free as an e book on Amazon.com for a limited time.  nancymauerman.com

Wasn’t it Newton who was praised for his scientific accomplishments but said, “I only stand on the shoulders of giants!” Meaning he only added his discoveries on top of the mountain of knowledge accumulated by others for hundreds of years before.
I was always disappointed as a kid when children in stories didn’t go tell their parent-type persons about the adventures, oddities, and mysteries they’d discovered. The only few kids I knew that wouldn’t have run saying, “Hey! Look what I found!” were the ones that longed most for this close bonding.
Typically grown men buy beautiful train sets for their sons and say, “Hey don’t touch it! You might break it! Watch MEEE PLAY WITH IT!” Meaning these giant-sized kids tell the smaller-sized ones, “I’m the top of the mountain of knowledge and everything. I ’m the entire mountain too; you can’t add anything to what I’ve learned and done!”
Many men and women let children touch the train set and learn, and pepper this with their own knowledge. Kids don’t want adults to solve the problems of the world for them but they do want an adoring audience. An audience who will stand beside them and be drenched in the whole sorry mess so their genius as they tackle the world. Not always praising but always there interested.

Along the way a youth will soak up wisdom and ideas from the old codgers especially as they work or play, read and watch T.V. and movies together. I write and illustrate kid’s books about adults and children each solving problems along side each other. But the child is always the Newton adding a new piece to the pinnacle of brilliance. In the four books of the Leafman Attacks series Anna has problems and so does her grandmother. Troubles add up and they need to literally save the world. Grandma Neda who’s taken every step beside her marvels that, “The whole world has been saved by dead bugs!” Read how Anna’s story progresses in ‘Leafman Attacks’ on Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com

Men don’t seem mysterious to women they just seem stupid but then there’s John; he’s stupid and mysterious too! Occasionally men come into our women’s meeting moving up the isle like they’re afraid to touch the carpet but don’t know how else to get to the front. They say their piece and as they leave each one of them says, each in their own way, something like this, “Well, I’ll leave you now to whatever important and powerful magic you all are working on.” It’s as if we were gleefully creating universes until we heard the doorknob rattle. Then we all looked at each other, sighed and whispered to each other, “Good grief. Now we have to quit!”
In a way perhaps we ARE creating universes. God used power to create the universe. It can be called physics, or faith, also priesthood power, but it boils down to love. I think the powers women have are hard to describe, vague and words are inadequate to describe this love we dispense and cultivate. Our meetings have a single purpose; to expound, examine and amplify that very thing. With love in mind, perhaps women should look at the differences in men and women a little differently. We should label it more kindly…as men do. Hmmm.
And then there’s John. He just bought 58 tubes of lip balm! 58! Let’s label him. Weird, yes, mysterious, stupid for a few minutes because he’s not me and I wouldn’t have done THAT. And John is creative LOVE because by the time we pulled into our drive way he’d thought of a someone who could use all that stuff.  nancymauerman.com

I wake up to loud TV and John is beaming, “I’m like you!” he says. “I’m doing three things at once! I’m washing dishes and listening to TV.” The news is so loud because it’s in another room and sound doesn’t to go around corners very well.
When I, for instance, take a laundry basket to the basement I save time by taking three jars of peanut butter, old batteries, Christmas wrap, a wrench, box of nails, hammer, jug of bleach, the weed whacker, and long nosed hedge clippers also. Of course sometimes I spill nails and scatter batteries on my way down and think myself lucky the peanut butter was in plastic, the picking up takes an extra ten minutes.
John would have taken the basket down and come up for the three jars, closing the door behind him each time so Formica, my cat, doesn’t get into mouse bait. He’d be up and down ten separate times taking TEN WHOLE MINUTES!
So there’s John proudly doing three things at once; dishes, TV aand??? What was the third? Thinking, or talking to me? I’d have been arguing with the TV, thinking about the three books I’m currently writing, illustrations for five, talking to John and doing leg lifts to exercise my back, which I did at the wrong angle putting me in bed. Watch out John!nancymauerman.com

I watched naked mole rats; they’re now my favorite animal, but they reminded me of a story about young boys caught on an island who become beasts. The problem was that they hadn’t attended Sunday School often enough or discuss with their elders the eternal law of self-love.
They hadn’t begun to practice the small difficulties of standing alone and willingly giving everything they owned for others and piece by piece receiving the great self-expanding joy in return.
Many people today appear to be adults, but have also never attended these meetings of self-structure. They can put on pretty and costly clothes but these kinds of things never cause love of any kind. These people appear to be “adults” so we assume they speak wisdom while holding a political office and we allow beasts to lead us.  nancymauerman.com

Perhaps “enemy” is a heavy word for someone several houses away who simply disliked us and activated the sentiment. Our house sat on a tiny lawn half of which slopped steeply four feet down to the sidewalk. We parked along one side of the house and walked along the top half of the lawn where for a hundred years residents had worn a path to the front door.
This path and surrounding area became riddled with wide deep holes which were impossible to see from dusk to dawn. I filled holes in a few times a week but we tripped over either fluffy dirt or in holes spilling groceries, books, and toys when we fell. The resentful neighbor used my children as his tools of engagement. It was great. My kids were the diggers. We just picked up the broken eggs and enjoyed his mischief.
You may be wondering what logic our neighbor used to talk my kids, and their two friends from next door, into digging these holes.

For three years the pesky neighbor the neighbor kid’s uncle, explained elves were shy but would speak occasionally to him. But his, the uncle’s, cup was flowing over the top with good benevolence and glee so he shared with the kids that elf treasure had just be deposited in our lawn. I was sorry for the uncle who had to live with his passive aggressiveness but on the other hand I’m sure he fell asleep giggling. I was thrilled my kids went to bed knowing they lived on enchanted ground and stood ready to inherit treasures beyond belief!  nancymauerman.com

If birds wore high heeled pointy toed red shoes with three toes in front and one in the back what would their sweaters look like?  nancymauerman.com