I had a little grandmother.  When she was a girl, homesteading on the plains, one day she was home, alone, when the native men came calling. They were known for killing the intruders on sight.  There was no where to run, the plains were FLAT, no lock on the front and only door, or window, so they came in! They crowded through the doorway and stepped in through the windows, holes in the walls. She was terrified but luckily they were hungry. They milled around in the tiny space talking in their own tongue, and she didn’t know if they were planning a particularly terrible death for her or slavery but they ate her cooling pies and left.
She was still living when I was eight and just as tall as me, her mother was a small woman too.  My little grandma was married to a man over six feet tall. Their fist home was a cave dug into a slight hillside with a few timbers closing off the front.  They eventually built a VERY small cabin.  When I was ten, you could see the small cabin, which was collapsing.
I wish I’d heard more stories and seen these woman in action. For a grandmother and granddaughter trading stories, one on top of the each other, told excitedly at the same time, and all mix into one, read Leafman Attacks 2 A Plethora Of Monsters at Amazon.com.

How big is a monster? I say ten could fit in my hand! Some families face major problems so when Anna and her Grandmother are faced with hundreds of monsters in a box what can they do? See Leafman Attacks 2 A Plethora Of Monsters.

“I’m not lazy!” he said, “I just make my bed open faced.”  That’s John Of course and he attended public schools not a Montessori, where children are surrounded by activities, all in their storage places. A young person takes one out, uses it, puts it away , then picks out another.
An education teacher told me about this, all wide eyed and excited. “What’s so great about that concept in teaching?” I thought. “I don’t see anything NEW, I can comprehend this idea without meditation, I can even spell all the words defining it! In fact I was RAISED with the idea!” I’d just seldom lived it. To see it in action was as beautiful as a ballet.
I’m fascinated with the connection between putting items in their places and mental health, which is a major subplot in one of my favorite books called Dead Serious by Carol O’Connel. I use it also in Leafman Attacks 2 A Plethora Of Monsters but in this case Anna’s Grandmother is delivered 102 large boxes, which creates more than clutter, a problem in her small house and the contents of each box are worse yet. Find this family problem at Amazon.com.

“What do you want for Christmas?” a friend of mine (who will remain nameless) asked his teenaged son. “I don’t know.” was the reply. No adult was going to shake an emotional response from this young man, until Christmas morning when he unwrapped a large oddly shaped gift.
Inside was a conformed bunch of wooden planks. They were hammered together in a misshapped, oddly, contorted way as if Jackson Pollack, the scribble painter, had tuned to sculpture. Outside all shingles were hammered in peculiar places.
“What is it?’ the poor boy asked.
Both parents and all his brothers and sisters, spontaneously, said together, ” I don’t know!”
If the success of any particular family is to make good memories, this one ranks high.

There are many ways to use drawing and painting skills. I attempt to make “High Art” but Brian, who you’ve met before hunting wild turkeys from an easy chair in a family member’s living room (see blog of Oct 6 2012 called Hunting Wild Turkey in High Heels With Matching Handbag), has a friend who paints scenes on old saw blades and such like. The friend decided he needed to paint on old wood planks so he searched and finally found old boards somewhat holding up a falling down , ancient, and odorous, outhouse. From the sound of it, I’m surprised he could stay in the same room while he painted an outhouse on the planks. The wood had soaked in the total ombionce, essence, and I’ll say it straight, SMELL. The painting was hung in public and two old women were discussing their young years, when outhouses were the only place of “relief”, and one was heard to say said, “I can almost smell it!”
In public showings I’ve also gotten strong reactions without what I’d call a scratch and sniff quality.

My brother, who died young, was buried with his quilt. Grandmother made it for him and one for me, too, although she didn’t like me at all. She loved me and by the time I was six years old i understood why she didn’t like me, accepted it, and loved her too.
I made quilts for my babies and by the time they were 7 they used them as reading blankets, creating warm cozy places on cool days.
I’ve always told my kids if they weren’t mine on loan and I’d met them otherwise they both be my favorite people. Upon reflection, I say families are as wonderful and complicated as a good quilt top.

“What are you going to do,” asked Anna’s dragon, in Dragonese, “when Leafman steals your house while your parents are gone?”
Anna was almost positive Iva Lou was thinking crazy thoughts. She must have caught Grandmother’s disease, bugbear thinking; terrible thoughts that might be possible This is the first page from my book Leafman Attacks 3 Worse Than A Bugbear, free for a few days as an ebook at Amazon..
What is a child to do when her grandmother has bugbear fears about bitty little bugs and her favorite dragon is afraid of houses going missing?

I have friends who were communicating through sign language before they could talk. Children are not simple minded. The fairy tales I was raised with were long and complicated so I wrote Leafman Attacks, as a series in four parts, as a transition between picture books and chapter stories.
There are two overall plots: problems can get worse before they’re solved, and families working together can save the world.  Find all my books on Amazon.com.

I finding people with out children in their homes are buying my books as well as multi-aged families. I think if we are to solve our countries and world’s problems we’ll need to think outside underneath, and around the corner the boxes so I write my books to juice up those imagination cells.
Here’s are a few ways to improve our economy: Hats; not caps, hats! All movie stars, TV personalities and magazine peoples are to wear hats. I suggest fedoras for men because I know from wearing my Dad’s last hat for twenty five years, men LONG for them! Even shy old guys stop me and tell me their life’s story in relation to their hats. Evey man will need at least three; one brown for casual wear ( the wide brims will lower skin cancer rates) but as everyone knows, brown can’t be worn with blue, so there will be many earth and black tones with various silk hat bands with synthetic feathers.
Women will wear head confections similar to those worn by Cathrine Hepburn in her early movies. the hats will modify and evolve constantly, always be hand made locally with each city having it’s own flavor and Letterman will say,” I see you’re from Salt lake. No? You were just visiting? Oh yes, I see it now. You’re from New york but visited Salt Lake where the hat was made with the designer leaving her own mark.” There will be journals reprinted often, explaining hat language.
Hats will be sold at all prices, consignment and internet sales will boon and designers will personally sign their favorites. My dad was terrified of miss placing his hats or leaving a restraunt with someone else’s so there will be genetic sirens and homing devices installed at check out stands. So many hats will be sold most stores will hire two people per stand for just this purpose. Collecting will become addicting (solving the drug problem) and women will aspire to add on rooms their homes, devoted to only hats.
Another economy improving solution tomorrow!

Children are greatly inspired in how they see life and what they say and do with this inspiration, but as they get older they learn to label, classify, and store information in non moveable places in their brains. This is necessary and good but what if they could link back to the way of thinking that lets work be play and their minds run wild?
Picasso spoke of beginning a painting with someone but finishing it by himself. Most of the great artists say this very thing, naming the “someone” God, inspiration, or muse, and a few say they’re helped by “someone” all the way through, can we as parents encourage wide and wild thinking and the ability to call on it when needed?
Here’s a warm up exercise for improving the economy: contrasting colored sweater balls! I like sweaters, so I know I’m going to get those pesky things, looking like mini dust bunnies hanging on for dear life. Why not make them a asset? All new sweaters should be sold with a bright and colorful bag of matching sweater ball to get you started and an email address in case you want to order more in various sizes and maybe complimentary hues or contrasting colors! Picture a deep and moody blue angora sweater on a movie star with day glow pink sweater balls mostly clustered around the pointed area of her chest and where a giant chocolate diamond is snuggled and I think we’d better rename that cluster of soft, feminizing, glorious fluff as; SOFT GEMS!