"...The Loneliness Birds seemed to fly into my heart and lay large stone eggs....." (excerpt from the movie based on the book The Power of One by Bryce Courtney.)
"20 SKIRTS IN 2 DAYS" was the original thought to keep my brain from exploding, or is it imploding?
I knew a lady once who had an autistic son. Over the few years of assosicating with this family I learned stuff about austism that I may never have known otherwise. Degrees of austism are rated in categories of "functioning", eg" high or low functioning. I thought this a wonderful description that would perhaps do for non - autistic people as well. 
If I were to describe my brain this last fortnight it would HAVE to come under the heading of "very high functioning"..... (not only do the stone eggs in the heart weigh alot, but the Loneliness Birds seem to flutter around in my head while tending to their eggs... or something)
No one single thought or train of thoughts is enough, oh, no, my brain wants to go silly and think ten MILLION things at once. This can sometimes be an Ok thing - for example if i use that energy in a positive fashion..... like work! Work! Work!
So as the brain goes nuts, I set little challenges for myself.... like seeing how many skirts i can finish and how quickly (without dying or letting the house go to the dogs of course). Since the return of the Overlocker from the Fix-It Man's shop, it has been a very busy little machine. I have many garments half done waiting to be overlocked before I can finish them. I grabbed a bagfull of skirts from the pile of half-done's, and there just "happened" to be twenty tartan skirts in it, all with only an hour or two to go before they were finished.
20 skirts in two days was a little over zealous..i had to admit after a full day and most of the night sewing.
By skirt 15 my shoulder had fallen off and my neck had gone down the path of "goodbye cruel world"; my wrists were doing their "fat lady' song rendition. (you know - the show's over when the fat lady sings....)
To my delight though, the overlocker was looking at me with greedy eyes wanting more! (Yayy for the new Mr Fix-It Man!!)
Technically, I should have started the challenge at a set time and with a fresh new bag of skirts that I was starting from scratch, and and all sorts of "technically correct" ways of doing physical challenges... but such was not the way of my high - functioning brain, or my physically limited body, so I actually counted three broderie anglais skirts as part of the final fifteen.
The three broderie anglais skirts I had finished in the morning, and then set myself the challenge at about lunchtime. I was thinking to NOT count them and do only the tartan skirts in the challenge, but as the following lunchtime loomed I was realising that I had bitten off more than i could chew, and decided to stop the challenge early rather than continue to twenty skirts and have to lie on the couch for a week recovering. 
In the end I am awfully happy with how many skirts i did get done, and it seems the general populace of Australia is pleased also..... Out of the 14 skirts pictured here, HALF of those are already sold! Wowsers! Go me!So, high functioning brain week due to loneliness and fluttery unresting head has proved to be a very productive time after all!
