And the beat goes on

So, Monday or so I noticed my car was making a noise. It was kinda like an exhaling noise everytime I pushed the clutch pedal down. Well it started to get worse. By today not only was it making a screaching noise like a timing belt, but it was also starting to smell. According to the mechanic that's a metal on metal smell. So it looks like I have to replace the clutch. Unfortunately we don't really know what the metal on metal smell is yet, as he has to remove the entire transmission to replace the clutch and since there were no visible metal shavings, he seems to think that it's another piece that works with the clutch. Fortunately for me, if that is the case, when you replace a clutch you buy a kit that comes with a bunch of other parts. So you don't just replace the clutch pad, if that's what it is. You replace mutliply components. So hopefully the metal on metal smell will be fixed with the clutch. the bad news - he can't do it until monday and it'll cost anywhere from $600 - $1000 if it's just the clutch. If it's something else... just shoot the car. Or leave it parked in my neighborhood without the club on it. Just let me get my Johnny Cash CD out of the car first.

On the bright side of things I did my first training workout. 30 minutes of running at 70%-80% heart rate. Which works out to a pretty good walk uphill. Looks like tomorrow is my day off. And on Saturday I've got a 45 - 60 minute bike ride at an easy pace keeping my heart rate at a certain level. I guess this means I should probably breakdown and buy a good heart rate monitor.

Sure it was an arse kickin' but it was a good arse kickin

I met with my trainer for the first time. The first time of actual physical fitness meeting. Everything felt good while I was there, but there's a few muscles that are now shouting at me. I didn't even really know these muscles existed. Oddly, while I feel sore, I really enjoy feeling sore. I'm super excited about getting going. I can't wait to see what my training schedule is going to be like! I committed to training 4 days a week. What was I thinking? I should do a couple of before and after photos. Ya know... I think I'm gonna do that. I'll do a couple of before photos and post them and post a new photo every month or so. We can plot my progress.

Moving on.

So i'm done talking about, thinking about and contemplating the whys and the hows of my breakup and the ex boyfriend. from now on, I will not be posting anything about him. Unless of course something huge happens and I have to get it out of my system. But I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. He doesn't like confrontation and calling me or trying to talk to me, will, in his eyes be some form of confrontation.
So on to better news... I got a trainer for the triathlon. The training begins on Monday! I went for a bike ride today and feel pretty darn good. And I talked to my aunt and hopefully she'll be coming up for the triathlon. It looks like this triathlon is turning out to be a small family reunion :)

New pants, new outlook on life

What can I say, new pants can do wonders for your outlook on life. I also realized tonight, that I like going out. And I'm going to do it more often.

As far as the ex, well, here's the thing - I'm angry. And I have every right to be. I'm mad at the way he, or should I say, I ended it. (As I had to be the one to break up with myself.) For someone who cared about me and had feelings for me, to not even have the decency to do it himself. Yeah, breaking up is awful. It hurts no matter how you do it. But to not even look me in the eye or even say it, that just disrespectful. And it hurts a thousand times more. Then when you email me a month or so later, to see how I'm doing and I email you back, saying, be honest with me and yourself, why are you really emailing? And you don't respond. Again, I feel disrespected. If you had responded and been honest with me, I would have been able to forgive you. But don't email me and expect me to absolve you of any wrong doing. I can't do that. I know you feel bad, possibly even guilty for the way you broke up with me, but that doesn't mean that sending and email saying basically nothing, will patch things up. You hold all the cards. You're the one who broke it off (and quite honestly, I'm not even really sure what your reasons were) and you can move on. I'm left wondering what happened. So until you can pick up a phone and deal with whatever confrontation may happen, I can not absolve you of your guilt. That is if you really do want to be friends. I'll eventually forgive you, but I will never look at you the same way. Maybe by the time the Reverend Horton Heat or the triathlon rolls around I'll be able to and want to, talk to you.

And now that I've said that, I'm done. I'm moving on. I need to do what is best for me.

First let me say thank you

Ok, first let me say thank you to all my friends who have been there for me. So please don't take this the wrong way. I appreciate all the advice and love that you all have been sending me. But this is not something that I can just say, "OK, I'm done. It's time to move on." That's not how this works. The things I write on my blog are the things I'm feeling at the time. This does not mean that I act on these feelings. But after going thru what I've been thru I'm realizing that I need to do things for me. This is my battle to face and while I appreciate the advice, the love and support, I have to do things my way. The choices I make may not be the same as the choices you make. We are all different people and we do things different. There's also a lot of information that you may not be aware of that leads me to the decisions that I've made. What I ask of my friends is to be there with love and support. To listen when I need to be heard. Again, and I can't say this enough, I love you all for being there and for loving me for who I am. I just need to go on this journey making my own decisions for my own happiness and not, as i have done in the past, doing what I think would be good for others. It's time for me to care for myself.

work, work, triathlon

what can I say... it's either work or the triathlon. That's really all I want to think about. Still no response from the ex. I want him to understand that if he wants to be friends that I need honesty. I don't want to make it a big deal. But it's easy for him to move on, as he was the one to walk away first. But I still don't have closure. It's easy to write an email to say hi. But for me, because of the way things ended and that he not into the relationship for the last month or so of it, it's hard for me to believe that he just wanted to say hi. I just want him to understand that. I want him to understand, you can't just hurt someone that badly and expect in 2 months that you can just send and email to say hi and not expect some sort of questions. At the beginning of our relationship I kept saying to myself, " take things one step at a time. Don't move so fast." He was the one to say things like, "You're the first person in 7 years I thought about living with." And even wanting to and starting to think about heading back east to meet my parents and hang out where I grew up. And when I finally felt like, "yeah this is something that's going somewhere and it's ok to take this to the next level," that's when he was on his way out the door. But he was still saying the same things. This isn't like dating in high school. You don't just move on quickly. We're adults now. Things hurt. And confrontation happens. Not all confrontation is bad. A lot of good can come from confrontation. I can't think about this anymore. I'm pooped. Too much time in a pool, on a bike or at work... it's too easy to let your mind wander.

Training, training and more training.

So I've been up to my eyeballs in triathlon training. If I'm not walking around the neighborhood, I'm swimming. Which is good. I can definitely feel the difference. Today I'm planning on doing a little container planting. We'll see if i have a green thumb or not!