Blog Updates

Each day on The Pin Junkie I share the crafts and recipes I do that are inspired by Pinterest, but I'm also working on some bigger, long-term Pinterest projects.  Today, I wanted to give you an update on those projects as well as some updates on previous posts.

My 5K challenge

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you might remember that I plan on running my very first 5K this spring.  I haven't posted about it in a while so you might have thought I'd given up or completely forgotten about it.  Nope.  I just haven't been very good about writing about this one.  I feel like there's not much to write about.  Mostly it's just me telling myself to go and do it and then running around in circles.  I haven't been very good at strictly following the Couch To 5K running program by running three times a week so it has taken me much longer than nine weeks to prepare for the run.  But I have been doing it and I really like how the program pushes you a little farther each week.  The slow and steady increments of endurance and intensity are very do-able.  Recently, I have been able to walk / run 5 kilometers (3 miles) which is pretty amazing when I think how hard running for just a few minutes was at the very beginning.  I've also registered for the fun run which will be on May 4!  At the beginning, my goal was to simply finish the race, but now my goal is to see if I can run the whole thing without walking!  You can read my previous posts about my 5K challenge here:

My 5K Challenge

My 5K Challenge #2

My 5K Challenge #3

My 5K Challenge #4

My 5K Challenge #5

My 5K Challenge #6

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Learning Spanish

I'm also wanting to improve my Spanish.  I wrote about a really neat website called Duolingo, which is a great tool for learning a language.  Well, I've just been too darn busy to keep up with the online lessons.  It's self paced so I'm not missing anything and hopefully I will be able to get back to it soon.  I also signed up for a local meetup for people who want to improve their conversational Spanish, but I haven't been able to attend any of the meetings yet.

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Photography

Old camera

New camera

I also shared a post about how I'm learning to be a better photographer.  I've always been very happy with my Canon point and shoot camera, but was starting to feel a bit limited by it so I splurged and  bought myself a present.  I got a new camera and I'm completely overwhelmed by all the functions on it!  I've been reading the manual that came with it and have found some good online photography classes with Craftsy and Shoot Fly Shoot.  There's also a local photography club I'm considering joining.  I really like the improved image quality of my new camera and can't wait to learn how to use all the buttons and functions it has.

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Tile Grout

About a year and a half ago, I cleaned my tile grout with a cleaning solution I found on Pinterest.  It did a great job of getting the tile clean, but it didn't stay clean.   A year and a half later it still looks just as dirty as it did before.  I'm not going to spend anymore time cleaning each line of grout because its an incredibly tedious job.  John and Sherry over at Young House Love also have light colored grout that was dirty and shared this product so I'm planning on using it and seeing what happens.  And of course I'll let you know how it works!