I just went outside and said, "Oh, it feels so nice out here!"

If I thought I could get Leif to go to sleep now, take a nap myself, and then take him to the playground at like midnight (when it's only 85 or so out), I would.

If anyone local felt up to it, I'd do it regardless of nap, though I may try just getting us up at 6AM instead.

So hot and yucky. I'm guessing he really needs to get some energy out, though. Our bathing suits aren't here, so I can't go throw him in the pool. Ugh. He is so frantic being cooped up inside, but I don't know what else to do with him besides the library, Borders, or a pool. And getting to any of those is still painful.

The high today for Davis is apparently 107.

The high today for Bagdad, Iraq is 99.

We lose.

Soooo hot. Need a nice shady pool to sit in all day.

I have a hard time knowing what to do with us on days we aren't babysitting. It's just so hot, and the number of things availble to do in air conditioning is limited.

Maybe I'll take him to the park in a bit. At least it is shady. Then we can go swimming this afternoon once it's late enough for there to be a little bit of shade to retreat to.

Mosquitos are bad this year - both Leif and I are covered in bites.

For all that Davis is painful during the summer, it does have it's good points. Evenings outdoors are pleasantly warm. The smell of the grass in the fields reminds me of summer camp. Downtown is a ghost town with all the students gone, making riding around much more pleasant.

If only I could get us napping in the afternoons and on more of a nocturnal schedule overall, but between babysitting and lack of calm, climate controlled space in which to do so, I don't see it happening.

If only it weren't likely to be 95+ every day until mid-September.

Leif wants to be all cuddly today. I don't get it. It's like 2380252 degrees out.

I'm starting to get leg cramps at night. Guess it's time to start eating more bananas.

I was running late getting Leif's to his watcher's house before aikido today, and was sure class was going to have already started by the time I got there, but everyone else was running late too. Yay!

Something worked right. Usually when I do rolls, it hurts a little. Today it didn't. I don't know if I was doing something different, or if Thanksgiving and Leif's unfortunate choice of potty spot gave me the break I needed in order to heal.

During on move, the senior student was having trouble getting me to go the correct way, and asked if I was double jointed. It turns out I am in that particular respect. I was amused that it was that obvious.

One time in 9th grade biology class, we were talking about freaky body tricks. One involved bending your thumb backwards towards your wrist. I was sitting next to a friend. We both tried it, and were showing eachother how it was no big deal, when we noticed the rest of the class staring at us.

I can't actually bend my thumb backwards to touch my wrist anymore, but it does go pretty far back.

The weather in Davis is finally damp, chilly and wintery. Well, chilly and wintery for Davis, anyways. I spend my time thinking that I'm a Southern California wimp who only likes temperatures between 65 and 80 degrees, and always forget that I actually really *like* this weather. I like wearing comfy long sleeved shirts. I like wearing lots of layers and being warm all over except for my face (and anything else that happens to be exposed). I like being able to wear my fuzzy wool socks.

I like mild weather, too, but overall I much prefer cold to hot. In fact, I prefer cold to can't-make-up-it's-mind-slightly-chilly.

I don't like that it's near impossible to dry laundry, however.

I'm wearing a nice comfy long-sleeved shirt and drinking hot apple cider.

It's 71 degrees out.

I can't tell if I actually feel slightly chilly, or if I'm just so desperate for a weather change that I'll take what I can get. Either way, I'm sure I'll be ready for it to be summer again in another month or so.

The thing that always gets me about Davis is that, as the day progresses, it just keeps getting hotter.

On the coast, 2PM is about the peak. After that, the ocean breeze comes in and things tend to start cooling off.

Here it just keeps getting hotter and hotter and hotter until the sun goes down. It feels unnatural. Seriously. It's not that I simply don't like it - it feels WRONG.

Yes, I know I post this about 8 times every summer.

The worst part about living on this boat (other boats may or may not be better in this respect) is rainy days.

When I was growing up in San Diego, three days was a really long storm, and an inch of rain over the course of a storm was a whole lot. Now we get heavy rain for a week straight, with rainfall of an inch per hour at times.

We get leaks. Rain blows in through the door and hatch unless we close up completely and deal with lack of air circulation. We have to pile stuff up in crazy ways to avoid the leaks. We have to figure out somewhere to put the rain gear, wet shoes, and other general sogginess. koyote's side of the bed gets soaked and he has to sleep out on the couch. The lightning and thunder and pounding rain (and, at one point, walnut sized hail) and wind keeps us all awake.

On the worst days, I'm stuck inside a less than 200 sq. ft. space with a bored toddler ALL DAY, except for perhaps a 30 minute puddle stomp outside. We abuse the DVDs those days.

On the good side, once the rain is over, the small size means that the mess can be cleaned up quite fast. Also, most of the leaks should be fixable. We thought we'd gotten most of them during the last dry spell, but apparently not.

In the middle of all this stormy mess, I spent two days sailboat racing.

No, I didn't think that this was the brightest idea, either. But the race wasn't cancelled, and I didn't want to piss off the woman giving me free sailing lessons by leaving her without crew at the last minute, so I went.

On the first day, when we got outside the breakwater, I was honestly sure I was going to die. It was raining, the surf was storm-high, and the pelting of hail the night before (there were still piles of hail a foot high piled up around storm drains six hours later, and this is LA we're talking about) hadn't left me feeling too confident about the weather.

Just after the race started, the weather cleared up, and the rest of the race was absolutely beautiful. We didn't do too well - two of us were very new to sailing, and the third was more experienced, but had never crewed on this particular boat before. We got off to a poor start and finished last, but another boat didn't finish the race at all, so it could have been worse.

The second day started off beautiful, but it started raining around the start of the race, and never recovered. By the end, it was really pouring, and we were all soaked and miserable, but the miserableness only hit after the race ended. We did a lot better that time - we were ahead of the boat whose crew had taunted us mercilessly the day before for a good stretch, and we may have actually placed decently.

We don't know, though. They threw out the race because one of the markers wasn't where it was supposed to be.

I hate being in wet clothing. I hate having my face sprayed with water. I'm not the world's greatest fan of potentially life-threatening activities, such as scrambling around the slippery deck of a boat leaning at a 45 degree angle in 150 feet of water. Somehow I still managed to love it.

I think I'm addicted now, and may have to move up to the Bay Area, where these conditions are apparently the norm rather than the exception.

Our propane tank ran out the other night. We started it in October or November, and hadn't expected it to last anywhere near this long. Pretty good, especially considering that winter is probably the highest stove-usage season.

I finally get to go to a fabric store tomorrow! Yay!

I need elastic for the diapers, the fabric and webbing for Carrier v2.0.

I got a chance to briefly try the Packababy a few weeks ago, and really liked it. Leif felt lighter in it, though that could just be because I was only able to try it out for a few minutes. It's basically the same style as mine, but the straps are two long pieces of webbing that cross in the back. Most of the baby's weight is supported on the webbing, rather than the fabric and the seams, so there's less chance it will break. This seems to help distribute the weight better, too.

It also means that the carrier should take less than half the time of the first carrier. The straps took a lot of sewing.

Because the straps carry the weight, I can use a lighter weight fabric than the canvas I used before. This will be nice, both because it will be cooler for the summer and because it will fold up smaller and be more manageable. This is why I tend to carry the mock-up I made out of muslin when we go out with the stroller or backpack carrier. I don't trust it for long-term use, and it isn't the most comfortable thing ever, but it's holding up surprisingly well for something that I never really intended to use at all, so it works well enough as a backup.

The packababy uses hemp/cotton combination on the outside, and cotton canvas on the inside, but it seems to be a lighter weight canvas than the stuff I'm using. Even with most of the weight on the webbing, I'm not sure how lightweight I can go and still have it work well. Hemp is strong, and I doubt I'll find any at the local stores (though it sounds like G Street might have a good selection, if silkensteel can figure out how to get us there. That would really be the best, since there's a Joanne's right there, too).

Colors... I like the off-white with the purple fishy panel I have now, but it stains awfully easily, and babies stain things frequently. We have some green star patterned flannel that would look great with black, but I have a feeling Leif would boil in that. I want to do something with this froggy print receiving blanket I have, but I don't know if I'd like a carrier made out of that. I guess I'll just see what they have.

I'd like to make the belt buckle instead of tie, to make it easier to adjust tighten. This may not happen right away, though (which is fine. I can just tie it until I get around to putting buckles onto the belt).

I don't feel bad about blatantly copying the packababy, since this is for my own use. If I decide to sell them, I'll improve on the design I currently have rather than making a packacopy.

(Incidentally, seeing the packababy convinced me that my carrier looks good enough to sell, especially if I get the right needle so the fabric stops catching and be a little more careful. It was nowhere near as neatly sewn as mine, though it wouldn't surprise me if the one I saw was one of the earlier ones they sold. I don't have the time right now to make an actual business, though)

We're planning to sell our stroller and baby backpack and get the Kelty combination stroller/backpack. We tried it out at the store today, and it's more bulky than our current backpack, but not bad. Not exactly the best of both worlds, but not the worst either, and probably good for our needs. Plus, it matches my Kelty backpack. Gotta coordinate.

It just started raining. It sounds so pretty!

So, so tired, but Leif refuses to sleep.

The weather is nice, and we're supposed to be out doing something, but I want a chance to take a nap if the opportunity arises, so we're just sitting around in back of the apartment. Yay for wireless.

This is the first time Leif has ever played outside in the grass.

This is actually really nice. I have a nice comfy chair, the sun is warm, and Leif is occupied by the newness of everything. I'm trying to take videos of him, but he isn't really doing a lot that could be considered interesting. He even stops babbling when I start the camera.

Nice, nice weather. It's hard to dislike it here when the weather is like this.