Blanket Ta-Dah, a Half Marathon, and some penguins and polar bears

Hello there. Today's post title makes me think of being in an episode of Lost. Hopefully, this post will not be as convoluted as a Lost storyline. (I actually loved Lost!!)
I have a lot to fit in, due to my fairly sporadic recent posting. 
So, to begin....

 I finished my nemesis blanket. Finally! This is the blanket I loved at first, then passionately hated, as I felt like it would never end. Now that it is finished, I am back to loving it.
Also I misjudged the amount of yarn needed, and was just too lazy to go and buy more. So instead of fitting a queen size bed, it's more of a single bed size........

  
Unfortunately, the happy day when I finished this bad boy, was overcast and rainy, so I only got a few shots of it in all its finished glory.

Here it is in its home on the lounge

Luckily before finishing the blanket, we went away for the night, and stayed in a beautiful Treehouse with an ocean view on my favourite mountain. Obviously, I took the blanket, and took heaps of photos of it in its almost finished state.

It is possible that I may have gotten carried away with "styling" the blanket., and may have thought I was a participant on Project Crochet Runway or the like.

Anyway, as you can see, I took ridiculous amounts of photos. The good news is that it encouraged me to try the collage on picmonkey for the first time, which is pretty easy to use.

On to the polar bears and penguins component of the post.... we took the shortest one to Seaworld this week, where all of us were captured by these guys in particular.

They were ridiculously adorable. they just promenaded up and down, back and forth, looking through the glass. So crazily cute!!

And this guy,........... loved his work.

On to the half marathon. I did it!!! It was great, I was fairly sore afterwards. 
Thanks to all of you for the support and kind words.
I always find it inspirational reading about people's exercise, and it often motivates me to lace up and go out, so I thought I would tell you what I find useful, and good about running.
1. It's really really easy to do, requires no equipment, just shoes
2. It's awesome, and addictive
3. It teaches you  patience and resilience.
4. It's really fun.
5. It's alone time, or thinking time
6. It's great for weight loss/maintenance. Which is great, as I love eating!!!
The things that I have found useful in getting back in to running have been- reading lots of running books to motivate me, and having a great playlist to listen to. 
I cannot overestimate the impact for me of listening to great music while I run.
Everyone has their own musical tastes, but for some reason, my favourite music to run to, that gets me ridiculously motivated, and always, always lifts my steps, is nineties hip hop. Yes,  my spotify running playlist includes such awesomely fabulous classics as "Bust a Move" "Baby got Back" and far too many Salt n Pepa songs.
They have fantastic beats to run too, and often make me laugh whilst running. Just because.

Anyway, I will leave you with this shot, and hope that you are all relaxing like this guy, whatever the weather is like where you are.

Take care of yourselves

xxx