Oh. My. Goodness.

Lots going on in my life, beginning with dumping a large mug of water into my laptop.  whoa.  Talk about a successful derailment of one's plans!!  Thank God the laptop brain is still intact.  It contains my everything.  The keyboard is a different story.  Some of the keys work, some do not.  I now have a USB keyboard attached to my laptop.  Next week, I will be looking for a new piece of equipment.  This one was limping along to begin with.  I have just hastened its retirement.

In the meantime, I escaped some brutal valley heat (110 for days) by heading to the coast.  I parked at the Blue Whale, in Oceanside.

 On the weekend, we took a 3 hour tour around Mission Bay with Xplore Offshore.  It's a business owned by a high school friend of my husband's.  This was my first time to do anything like this, and I highly recommend it.

 The Common Dolphins love to play around the boat.  I was sitting in the bow, the front of which you can see in the bottom of the above photo.  We also saw Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins, (below.)  We were this close.  Amazing!

But the (literally) BIG fun was the Blue Whale.  We watched him surface three times, and I snapped countless photos, most of which showed only sky or water.  It was hard to take pictures and watch him simultaneously.  But I tried!

 It truly was a spectacular day out there, buzzing around offshore.  woohoo!

But it hasn't been all outdoor fun and games.  I've been working, too.  Penny's Pinwheel has come out of storage and is back in process.

 I thought I would get everything stitched down, except the jacket bottom.  (I still have to put the skirt together.)  Unfortunately, I could not get the left arm to look right.  Fortunately, I realized that the problem is piece #139.  I have no idea where it is, though I know it was bouncing around my studio for months.  I have no idea where it ended up.  I will hunt for it in both the Studio and The Annex.

The best news is that I am once again enthused about this project.  Maybe 2017 will be the year that I really truly finish it.  Goals are good!!