Squirrel!

As we work on our Give Thanks quilts, I want to talk about my brain. I have what I like to call a squirrel brain. If any of you have watched the movie Up, remember Dug the dog? I love the part when he is talking and then gets easily distracted and suddenly yells, “squirrel”! That’s my brain!  Some people would say I have ADD but I prefer squirrel brain!

Now before you go feeling bad for me, let me just tell you that it’s my blessing and my curse. Yes, I said blessing! Let me explain to you how my brain works. I think and process really fast. Sometimes too fast. It’s like popcorn popping new thoughts into my head continually! Sometimes one thought bumps another one out of the way and I get distracted easily. Or I find myself forgetting things because I’ve lost the first thought too quickly. It can get a little overwhelming with all my chaos in my head. 

But let me tell you about the blessing part. Lucky people like me, have great ideas! We come up with some great stuff, even if we can’t get the words out before our brain pops to the next thought. We come up with idea after idea! But that’s not all. Because we process so fast, we can quickly forgive others and move on. Which means we bring a lot of joy to the world! It can be one of our gifts.  We are witty and often the life of the party. Did you know that people with ADD often do really well under pressure? We also generally don’t get stuck trying to process a situation. Instead, we move forward quickly.

I know we like to compare ourselves ladies, but we weren’t all created to be the same! How boring would that be? The things we love about others are often times the things that drive us crazy about them. My husband tells me he loves the joy and fun I bring to his world, but it drives him nuts that I can’t remember to shut the cupboard door.

When you have a brain like mine, rules are more like suggestions. This means we will try almost any quilt pattern at least once. And every pattern is just a suggestion, including our own! We love to take ideas and give them a twist. But because we get bored easily, we may not finish it! While this can be a struggle, it also makes us really good at thinking outside the box. We are great problem solvers when you can get us to focus on the problem long enough. We are great at starting stuff. The queen of UFOs (a UFO is an unfinished object in the quilt world)! But finishing a project is a whole other can of worms.

So the next time your friend with the great ideas, forgets your birthday or seems to get side tracked mid-sentence. Don’t be offended. Just yell! Squirrel!