German goals, etc.

Since I don't speak nearly often enough about the German part of this, I'm going to talk a little bit about that today.  I've been working very hard on my German, especially lately and it's been showing.  I've found myself starting to translate a lot of what I think or say into German just to see if I can.  I've also been attempting to not have a panic attack when using German with native speakers and I'm actively seeking out people with whom I can speak German on a more frequent basis.  I've come a long way in 8 months and I'm very excited about it.  Hopefully it continues.

I think that since I started trying to do all of these things (the learning German, the eating healthier, etc.) I've learned a whole bunch about myself.  For this whole time, the working out and eating healthy has been the hardest.  Even with the schedule that I have now, I still find it difficult to do all the things I want to do.  It's never been a challenge for me to continue to work on my German though.  It's easy to tell that I'm making progress and I really enjoy learning the language.  I'm never put off of it by coming across German that I don't understand, but I see it as a challenge and something to improve upon.  I think it's crazy that I can go back and read emails that were written in German that I had to spend an hour translating when I first got them and now I don't even have to think about what's being said.  I know I have a long way to go, but I love that I am getting better.

Since the beginning of the year (or maybe since we moved to Nebraska) Mr. Leick and myself have been talking about what we really want to do with our lives.  He's fortunate enough to have found his calling and he is doing what he loves every single day.  I really enjoy my job, but it's not something I see myself doing every day for the rest of my life.  This came up again tonight when I started speaking in German to my dear husband.  It drives him crazy (but he thinks it's hilarious) when I start muttering in German (which happens embarrassingly often) but this time I was actually speaking to him in the language.  He kept wanting to know what I was saying and I was trying to help him figure it out but I was getting nowhere, so I just told him what I was saying (that I thought it would be fun to speak only in German to him so that he would learn).  He disagreed because he is no fun, but he just kind of looked at me and then went off on a bit of a rant that, quite frankly, I needed to hear. It went something like this, "You are very good at German and very smart and not many people could make the progress you have only doing this mostly by themselves.  You clearly love the language and love to learn it and I could see you teaching it.  It's something you're passionate about and you should do what you LOVE, not what you like."

I've spent a bit of time looking at programs to learn German to see what my options are.  As it turns out, UNO has a program for teaching English as a second language.  Anyone who knows me (or at least looks at my Facebook ever) knows that my love of Austria knows no bounds.  I realize that I'm probably putting it on something of a pedestal, but I love it there and would love nothing more than to live there.  I know that Omaha was the goal of this blog, but I dislike so much about America and I think we've got it all wrong a lot of the time.  Omaha is amazing in and of itself but I want out of America, and Matt's hopped on the bandwagon.  I think our chat this evening about what I should do and what I should try to achieve really made us both realize that there's so much more we BOTH can do and we shouldn't be limited by city limits or state lines or even oceans.  Maybe my love of the German language is just what we needed to throw caution to the wind and say that the world will be our oyster.

Granted, this will take time.  First I have to get to the point where my German is good enough that I can apply for and get into the program and then I have to actually pass and everything, but it's a good goal.  It's something to strive for.  I think one of the things that I'm most looking forward to is that Matt said that if I do this - go for the master's degree and everything - I will be able to study abroad.  The fact that I didn't while I was at Truman is probably the biggest regret that I have from college.  For something I want this badly, and something that Matt wants for me and for us, I think the only question is timing.  It might take awhile but it's something we're going to do.  The ultimate goal is for me to get a job in a Austria (ideally in Vienna, but really anywhere in Austria would be perfect...I'd even settle for Germany) teaching English to high school aged students.  The best part is that Matt really can take his skills anywhere (he does things with a computer...don't ask me what) and he thinks learning German would be fun, which is good because eventually he'll probably need to speak it, especially if we're living in Austria or Germany.

So that's the plan and that's where we've come after 8 months of me learning German.  I'm glad that I have a wonderful husband who is open to my crazy ideas and who will support me no matter what.  I guess that I have a new goal for this blog now: to do all of the things I've talked about in this post.  Plus still the weight loss thing.

Anyway, I've been rambling on for awhile now and I need to get some sleep.  Hopefully this is actually coherent!  On that note, have a good night.

Tschüss!

Marriage is awesome because you get a free training buddy. :D

Tonight was interesting, to be sure.  For the last few days I've not been doing so much of the running thing because my legs have been a little bit bratty and also (partially) because I was really dreading the next workout for C25K.  I've been doing a lot of strength stuff - wall squats, push ups, crunches, etc. which has been really good because I definitely need the strength training to help with the losing weight, but I really want to finish the C25K thing.

Since Matt's been working out as well but both of us hadn't been doing as much as we could or should have, I asked him if he wanted to come with me tonight.  He said he would and so we decided we'd do C25K together.  I'm basically starting it over, but that's okay.  I've done it all before and it'll be so much better if I have a training partner.

I was expecting that it would be easier than it had been at first (I swore I wasn't going to make it to the end of the program on the day that I started) but I didn't really even break a sweat until the third running set.  It was crazy!  Matt had about as tough a time with it as I did at first, so I just kept his pace and when he wanted to stop, I made him keep going.  I think he wanted to take a swing at me a time or two, but he kept going and finished the whole thing.  I loved that I was able to encourage him and keep him going and that doing this together was helping me to get out there and keep running.  For the record, I am incredibly proud of Matt for doing this.  I was proud of myself for the fact that I managed to finish every run that I started and I think it's a huge step for him to start running too.  Hopefully we can keep this going and eventually run a 5K together.  One of the wonderful things about being married is that you'll always have a partner and I am absolutely looking forward to doing this as a team.

We've also gotten much better about not eating out.  I think at some point before I mentioned that we'd made a new budget and we really limited the amount of money we would spend going out and it has made a huge difference.  We've really wanted to go out a few nights but we've stayed in every time and cooked at home.  It's so much easier to be healthy and eat good food (and lose weight!) when you're actually doing the cooking.  Hopefully things will continue as they have been because I think both Matt and I are in a really great place right now.  We'll just keep chugging along and motivating each other.  And if anyone has any great healthy recipes or suggestions for where to find them, I'm all ears!

Also, since I don't think I've talked about it in awhile, things on the German front are going well!  I'm doing Rosetta Stone pretty frequently and I think my handle on the language is getting better.  I'm also going to actually attempt to have a conversation in German with one of my native speaker-friends on Sunday.  I'm not sure how it's going to go, but I've already made said friend promise that he will force me to speak in German even though I don't want to and won't like it.  For some reason (I think I've already mentioned this) the idea of speaking in German to a native speaker scares the crap out of me.  I know that my pronunciation isn't that great and I hate every word in that language that uses the letter u or ü (which is like, 97% of the words in German) because it takes me a good 5 minutes to be able to get the pronunciation right and even then, I have no idea how the last time I said (or the correct pronunciation) it is any different from the first time I said it (or the completely wrong pronunciation).  So hopefully I'll do okay and will manage to get over my slightly ridiculous fear of speaking the language around the only people in the world who will actually be able to help me improve.

And on that note, I think it's pretty well past my bed time.  Goodnight all!

Tschüss! (See! Every word in German! They all have that stupid letter... :P)

Thoughts on running and other fun things!

I've been a little bit MIA lately, but not nearly as bad as I've been before.  Also, I've actually been doing the things that I said I was going to do, so I'm proud of myself.  I have one more day of Week 3 for Couch to 5K, which is really exciting.  Week 1 is three days of jog one minute/walk 90 seconds for 20 minutes.  Week 2 is three days of jog 90 seconds/walk two minutes for a total of 20 minutes.  Week 3 has been two repetitions of jog 90 seconds/walk 90 seconds/jog three minutes/walk three minutes.  I don't think I've gone into any of the workouts yet thinking I was actually going to finish them, which is kind of sad and speaks to the terrible shape I'm in but I have yet to NOT finish a workout.  There's this mental level that I get to when I'm running and every part of me is thinking that I could just stop but I just keep going because I haven't quit yet and I don't want this to be the workout that I do.  I never even realized I could push myself this much, but I kind of love that I can.  There's a picture that someone on Facebook posted that I didn't really understand until I started the whole running thing.  It says, "I don't stop when I'm tired, I stop when I'm done."

This week's workouts have been especially tough but I've managed to do all of them and I have seen some visible improvement every single time.  For the first few workouts, I consistently beat my time.  The last couple, there were a couple of flukes with the time or the GPS on my phone so I haven't had a time to compare my previous times with.  It's been okay however because, for example, today I ran the entire three minutes without stopping for water.  I don't know if it's because it was cooler or there was more of a breeze or what, but on Tuesday I had to stop during both three minute runs to get a drink.  I've also noticed significantly less cramping in my sides, especially toward the end of the workouts.  I feel a little ridiculous for not being able to run for three minutes without cramping, but I have gotten horrifically out of shape and the important thing is that I'm working on it and doing something about it.  I used to have to run a mile twice a year in gym class and if I could run, I don't know...a nine minute mile when I was eight, I should be able to run a nine minute mile now that I'm 23.

In other news, the eating healthy thing is going decently as well.  Matt's jumped completely on board with all of my crazy schedules and we've been doing a much better job of not going out to eat.  I think that with both of us exercising, we're finding that we're capable of pushing ourselves to do much more than we would in the past.  There was a night this week when neither of us wanted to cook (or clean up after cooking and eating!) and we were about 30 seconds away from going to Runza and neither of us faltered and we both kind of looked at each other and were like, "I'm not going to be the first one to crack..." and we ended up eating at home, which was great because the food was delicious and about 100 times healthier than Runza.  Plus our pocketbook is happier too, because based on the number of times I've eaten there since I moved back I'm pretty sure I could have financed their entire Nebraskan operation.

So overall, things are going well!  I'm looking forward to continuing to succeed (hopefully) and to meeting all my goals.  I've also created something of a timeline, so hopefully that all works out.  Only time will tell, but if things continue to go as they have I think (Matt and) I will succeed!

Tschüss!