It's a new dawn, it's a new day...

Well, we began our New Year's with a tradition called the Polar Bear Swim at a local river. Justin has participated for the last 3 or 4 years--and VERY maturely decided to sit it out since he still hasn't recovered from his bronchitis. I told him on New Year's Eve that I would prefer that he didn't participate this year, but that the decision was his. Yay Justin!

Here's James and Ryan just prior to jumping in the freezing cold lake. I grew up with James, and he's also cousins with Justin's best friend. And as of two days ago when Justin's sister's divorce from her crazy ex-husband was finalized (it's been pending for about two years), I believe that she and James are officially dating.

Ryan apparently thought it was cold...I'm SURE it was.

Justin and I watching. Excuse the greasy gross hair...we crashed at J's parent's house the night before and didn't have clothes, hadn't showered, etc.

Logan has learned how to say "cheese" for the camera. And now he does it ANY time he sees a camera. Too cute.

After that, we headed home. What I SHOULD have done today (since I'm not lucky enough to have tomorrow off) is laundry. However, apparently doing laundry on New Years Day means that in the next year, I loved one will be "washed away"...i.e. killed. I'm not usually one for superstitions, but I just decided not to chance it. So instead, I finally went through my closet and took out all the things that didn't fit, J accidentally shrunk in the wash, etc. If you remember, I took two HUGE bags of clothes to Goodwill not too long ago, and I also gave away a box to a single mom that I work with. Today, I cleared out two more apple boxes worth of clothes. I called Renee to see if she wanted to look through them before I took them over to Goodwill. She's shorter than I am and also much skinnier, so she lucks out when J or I accidentally shrink my clothes. I think she ended up with about a box of stuff, and I'm excited--I LOVED a lot of the things, and I'm just happy that someone might actually get some use out of them instead of having them sit in my closet and never be worn. That said, I still have an almost full closet and probably five loads of laundry (obviously not all my clothes) to do. What I really think I need to do is to rotate out summer and winter stuff--I keep the same things in my closet all year round.

Anyway, despite all those clothes, I only have two pairs of dress pants for work. Even though money is extremely tight this month (it's our first month actually paying the mortgage payment), J and I were anticipating having to buy me a pair of dress pants at some point this month. When I saw that Gap was having 50% off their dress pants today, we decided to go ahead and do it today so that I could get two pairs out of the deal.

Tomorrow, I'm off to work (BOOOOOO!), and then to the gym afterwords. I went to the gym on Wednesday and did the bike (I'm not sure that I'm up for a spin class yet, but I AM supposed to be biking). It absolutely KILLED my knee. It hurt so bad, and I wasn't even going that hard. Nevertheless, I made it through 30 minutes. My goal for tomorrow is 45. We'll see.