The Rowe Family Blog

I ran a nice short run today.  I did the 3.2 mile loop.  When I started out I was pushing myself rather hard.  The truth is that I wanted a new personal record for the 3.2 mile loop.  I tried to keep good form today.  I paid most attention to my gait.  I tried to keep my feet close to the ground to reduce impact.  I wasn’t the only one out for a run today.  I saw 3 other runners in just 2 miles!  It was a great training run.  I didn’t get a new PR for the loop but I did do very well.  I finished in 24:55 which is a 7:47 pace (the Boeing of race times).  I won’t do a long run tomorrow.  I may wait until Wednesday to give my legs plenty of rest time.  I think I may also pay a visit to a sports medicine/physical therapy place to see what I can do about my shins.  They still hurt almost all the time.  I haven’t mentioned it because I’m tired of writing about them.  It’s boring.  My posts have been boring (even to me, I can’t imagine what it’s like for anyone else!).  Time to shower!

Last weekend we had beautiful weather in Rochester.  No, really we did!  It was 70+ and sunny.  It was just the sort of weather that I would want to be out running in.  But I didn’t run in that beautiful weather.  I decided to give my legs extra rest time and to work on my never-ending-and-ever-growing indoor todo list.  My plan was to run on Monday evening after work.  The weather forecast said there was a chance of rain and that it would still be near 70.

Towards the end of the work day it got cloudy and it rained.  I was not happy about that but the clouds cleared and by the time I got out on the road it was sunny again.  My plan was to run 9.7 miles.  I wanted to run the Rowe Quarter, starting at my parents house, stop at my mailbox for water, and run the three mile loop.

The run started out well.  It was nice out.  I didn’t need a shirt and I was still warm.  I got sweaty and I remembered how much the heat can take a toll on you.  After about 4 or 5 miles I started to want the water that I had stashed in my mailbox.  At about that same time it started to rain.  It started with just a few big drops but I knew there’d be more.  I took my mp3 player off my air band and held it in my hand powered off.  And then the skies opened up. Read the rest of this entry »

I hate rebates.  They are extremely inconvenient.  They also force me to pay sales tax on a portion of sale that I’m not really paying for.  I understand why companies offer rebates all the time though — it makes them money.  People think that they are saving money, and they can, if they follow the 15 rules set forth in the rebate guidelines.  But sometimes even if you follow all of the rules they still reject your claim.  Or you never get a rejection notice or a check.

Recently I bought a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade mike-arita as a gift.  A rebate was offered for a whopping 2 dollars.  The rebate didn’t influence my purchase decision but I decided to take advantage of the offer even though it was hardly worth my time.  After paying postage I’d only get about $1.60.

I followed their rules which were:

• send the rebate form
• send the original dated register receipt with product highlighted or circled
• send the original UPC code from the product

Sometime later I received a rejection letter that included all of the materials that I originally sent to the rebate address.  The rejection letter stated:

“All required purchases could not be identified on the register receipt”

This boggle my mind because the item is circled on the receipt (see below).  Maybe they didn’t understand that 750 ml is the same as 1 pint, 9.36 fl oz.  The bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade mike-arita now cost me $.39 more than the price I paid at the register.

If your company is considering a rebate program I urge to not offer a rebate.  If you must offer a rebate I urge you not to choose CMS Rebate Services as they obviously can’t handle the simplest of rebates.

Well, I’ve been feeling GREAT! Up until last Sunday. I have been exhausted since last Sunday and have been unable to recover no matter how much sleep I get. The Little One will be worth it, but wow! I don’t remember being this tired since I was 3 months pregnant and before then I had never been this tired. I never realized how much pregnancy can take out of a woman! And to add a little more complaint…my back aches all day every day, heartburn stinks, my legs ache in the middle of the night (yes I’ve tried pillows…no luck), and I think my feet are getting larger (maybe swollen or just larger).

I have to say though that we are really looking forward to the arrival of the Little One. It will all be worth it. The nursery has been set up for a couple of weeks now (minus a curtain and a couple of other minor items) and it is absolutely adorable! Tomorrow we are going to pack the hospital bag, diaper bag, and get the car seat bases in the cars. I am also hoping to get out to buy a boy outfit and a girl outfit for coming home as well as some more maternity clothes since very few things are fitting me. The belly continues to enlarge, which, of course, is a good sign.

We went out today and bought a new digital camera! It is an Olympus 7 megapixel camera with 5x zoom. We should be able to print 8×10 photos from that if all goes well. That was our last major purchase for the Little One. We still have some major purchases to make for the home theater, but that is so we are entertained while we’re home with the Little One. In the future the Little One will appreciate it, but for now, we will appreciate it!

Well, we have a few things left to do around the house. Our to do lists are constantly growing with more things that we want to get done. A lot of the items are seasonal but, with me having far less energy, it’s not going to be easy, but we’ll get things done eventually. Nothing is really pressing, but we want to be able to spend time with the Little One once he/she arrives.

Motley Fool is an OK resource for learning about investing as long as you get past their almost endless sales pitches about joining their investment newsletters. They lost a lot of credibility in my book recently. This week I got spam from an address that I gave out ONLY to Motley Fool. This was REAL spam. This is part of body of the spam: Read the rest of this entry »

Finally the weather doesn’t suck.  It’s 70 degrees outside (and inside).  That’s the warmest this house has seen since the fall.  If my shins cooperate with me I hope to do a long run tomorrow or Monday.  The smartest thing wouldn’t probably be to wait until Monday but I’m not very smart.

I’ve actually been running pretty regularly outside.  It’s been very cold but I’ve dealt with it.  I haven’t been doing any real long runs which is disappointing to me.  All of my recent runs have been 3.2 miles:

• date-4/10 time-25:17  pace-8:54
• date-4/12 time-29:01 pace-9:04
• date-4/15 time-24:20 pace-7:36
• date-4/17 time-25:30 pace-7:58
• date 4/19 time-25:40 pace-8:01

My calendar says that it’s April but I think it is lying to me. It’s far too cold outside to be April. I’d like to get outside and run because the treadmill is boring (in comparison) and it seems like my shin problems are worse on the treadmill than on the road. This weather if getting me down!

Even though it was a bit chilly out I did get out to do some running. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I ran the 2007 Spring Forward 15k road race at Mendon Ponds Park. I didn’t train for this race. Leading up to the race I considered it as a training run. I wanted to run it at a nice leisurely pace and use it as a hill workout as the course is extremely hilly. Last week I ran twice. One run was 3.5 miles and the other was 2.0 miles. The 3.5 mile run I finished in about 30 minutes. The 2.0 mile run took just about 17 minutes. Although I was planning to run the race at an easy pace it didn’t work out that way. Having 300 other really good runners around gave me a big shot of adrenaline. I have to admit that I felt a little bit competitive as well. Read the rest of this entry »