Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091225

Title: Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091225
Link: http://www.ymcasv.org/southwest
Key words: 90hazelnut fictional email to All Peach, all rights reserved, California, Nintendo PS3, PS3, Saratoga, skiing, Southwest YMCA

Hi All Peach, Merry Christmas! I thought of you at 6:30 a.m. my time today, this Christmas day, and was thinking you were probably well en route, if not almost there. I was wishing you all a safe trip, and a fun and loving time together eating everyone's good foods. :-)

I did some praying this early morning. Not because it was the Day to, but because I was up then, but not at the southwest YMCA. Maybe I should start shooting short prayers for the people around me at the gym, and their families, to keep in the good habit while at the gym, too. (It's not •All• about blasting fast Mellencamp tunes to pump it to - ha ha ha!)

Our Christmas Eve was nice, too. Right now it's Christmas day at about 7:45 a.m., and so far only K2 is out yet. He is playing NCAA Football 10 on Nintendo PS3, and his father got him a new PS3 because the first family one finally just died in December 2009.

It looks sunny and cool for today, here. Yesterday when I went into the YMCA at 8:30 a.m., it was still only 36 F then (according to my car thermometer). Usually it has only been 36 F at 5:30 a.m. - and sometimes warmer than that - and it usually warms up steadily once the sun rises.

I will try to send you short emails until I ski, so you can read them on a phone if you're free to.

All my love to you and your family, All Peach - 90hazelnut :-)

This is a fictional work by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 25) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com and allpeach64.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091217

Title: Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091217
Link: http://www.ymcasv.org/southwest
Key words: 90hazelnut fictional email to All Peach, allpeach64, all rights reserved, California, driving, hunting, kids, Saratoga, Southwest YMCA, spouse, vacuum

Hi All Peach, I'm glad you're well, and exercising and enjoying life and your family.

I went to the southwest YMCA twice this morning. I felt strong and worked pretty long and hard. My knee is still bothering me, though. I could only do 5 minutes of 4.5 mph on the treadmill at 8% grade. I filled out my time in the cardio room with half elliptical, half recumbent bike. I did 120 reps of ski lunges, though, and didn't feel bad afterwards. I also did various weights. So far I enjoy every weight, because I am lifting extremely modest weights.

I had a bit of a busy afternoon yesterday with kid driving-around. One kid had a dental appointment that we had to wait half an hour for, and seemed to run extra-long itself; another kid needed to be dropped off and picked up from play practice, and another kid was "stuck" in the public library for 2.25 extra hours because she wasn't done when I came by the first time. I also drove a regular carpool first - no biggie.

I am vacuuming and wrapping presents today. Pretty easy, I guess, except it hurts my knee to vacuum ('cause I'm often getting down on the ground so I can see what needs extra attention, and I haul myself Under some of the furniture). My spouse says that no one else vacuums my way (he probably really means: Fool!), and I say, I know, but that I've made it part of my workout routine and I like it. He says, okay, well then, don't do it when it hurts. I say, that would be wise ...

I hope you have a good day and will have a good weekend hunting, too. Love, 90hazelnut

This has been fictional writing by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 17) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091214

Title: Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091214
Link: http://www.ymcasv.org/southwest
Key words: 90hazelnut fictional email to All Peach, Air Force, allpeach64, all rights reserved, California, Christmas, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, military, Saratoga, Southwest YMCA, YMCA

Hi All Peach, I'm glad to read that you are all well. I am glad your spouse made it back safely. Thank you for writing to me.

That's nice you managed to get some family Christmas shopping done, even while in the company of your kids. I believe we do, ourselves, too, actually have our family buying well under way, and maybe it's even almost under control.

My spouse just got me/us new gym socks to share from Kohl's, himself, when he and K1 were out Christmas shopping. I told him he could wrap them and put them under the tree for me.

I didn't go to the gym today, because I had a very good, strong, long workout at the southwest YMCA (Saratoga, CA - http://www.ymcasv.org/southwest ) yesterday - and only one day before that, was my lifelong hardest and most painful workout. It helped me that the top athlete I like to watch and take inspiration from, was in the gym having a long workout on Saturday morning, because I was in such pain (knee) and stiffness (thighs).

Your mother's birthday is in mid December, right? I seem to remember making a donation to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, on her birthday about 2 years ago, I believe. I am so glad she is in good health and is much loved, and has her faith and duties.

I hope your relatives have an easy and loving time together today, related to maintaining and increasing their family health. I am praying for them, and for you and your whole extended family, and your military friends, and your extended contacts, daily - and for some more people, too. :-) (In short, I am having a basically good time, and keep busy.)

All my love to you, all Peach, your 90hazelnut

This has been a fictional work by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 14) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091212

Hi All Peach, thank you for your very nice reply - it did me a world of good. What you wrote was excellent, and it spoke right to me - was personalized just for me.

Had it been me in my kid's place, I think my mother would not have handled such a situation tactfully; she might have gone ballistic about what was before her eyes, before considering any other part of the problem.

I hope your relative is stable and not too worried, today. I hope she gets a good rest before her procedure on Monday.

Too bad about that cold northern city not being an option, in your near future. I sometimes wonder when You can personally count on retirement. I am very glad you like where you are, anyway! It seems like a great place to raise a family, too. I love the wooded look to your general area when approaching from air; it looks so calming.

We still have only two kids at home today, until K1 comes home in the latest afternoon or early evening from a gymnastics-type birthday party. I bet she'll be tired, because she's been burning the candle at both ends, staying up until 1:30 occasionally, and getting up at 5:30 occasionally. She is paying too high a cost to her health, because she facebooks and IM's and plays various games and watches various videos for hours. She says she totally can't start her homework before 9, and even then, it's sometimes multi-tasking, with IM going on the right side of the screen, as she types her report. I see I have some real parenting to do ...

I exercised today at the southwest YMCA, and it was very difficult - probably my hardest bout yet. And I didn't even hardly break a sweat; it was only hard because of the pain in my knee and thighs. I have been feeling pretty strong and energetic for months now, but injuries are starting to set in. Today I stuck to 30 minutes WALKING at 4.0 mph at 8% grade, and 20 minutes biking at resistance 10 out of 20, but at only 75% normal RPMs. And an hour of weights. The lower body weights were hard for me today - I felt fine and strong and confident in my beginnerishness on upper body free weights. The hardest part of the workout today was getting from standing to sitting - sitting to standing is easier, because I can use my arms to give me some upward boost.

Why did I have to do 120 reps of that hugely lunging ski exercise on Thursday?! I felt great at the time I was doing it - totally strong and joyful ... so I couldn't tell that I was going to have been done in by it, from 3 to 48 hours out ...

On a related note: I get to park my carcass in Tahoe for four days, very soon! Yay! Yay! Yay!!!

The 4 of us are in pretty good moods, from all appearances. It's really nice when the balance of things changes a little, for a while.

I hope you have a lovely day with your dear family.

All my love to you, All Peach, from 90hazelnut

This has been a fictional work by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 12) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091210

Hi All Peach, I hope you are having a nice Thursday, and I hope it's relatively easy for you.

I've seen some news on a big snow storm hitting the midwest and the east coast. I am a bit concerned for the people of those regions, now.

I spent a number of hours at the Southwest YMCA already today; I had two bouts there, both in the morning. I felt good except for my knee. I ran some, even with the healing knee. I feel something slipping around on top of my knee, after I do legs. I usually do 50 minutes of lower body, these days. Also my abs are being worked hard, and I feel them. It's a good hurt, I believe. I'm keeping with pretty moderate and slow increases on weights, because I have to be moderate somewhere (!).

I'm glad your kid is getting on okay without his electronics. What you said to your spouse and him sounded really "right on". It was very well put. I liked the general principle of working hard now, towards a future goal.

I myself am glad to have some manageable personal goals, again. I feel like I am chugging along smoothly, most of the time - mostly making progress, and sometimes not making so much progress.

I wish you could log into this system we have at the local high school where you can check out the GPAs and SATs of college-applying students, etc., of virtually any college you could want - and which scores led to acceptances by the universities, and which didn't. Our high school is blessed with all kinds of college information of all sorts. I hope you'll have similar information available to you all.

I will pray for your peeps - and I also personally hope no bad health event comes to a head.

Love, 90hazelnut

This has been fictional writing by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 10) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to L, 20091208

Yes, L, this request is for real. It’s from me, but I was in my spouse’s amazon account at the time.

We use Amazon for quite a few of our household purchases. I have birthday reminders set up at Amazon. One of the birthday reminders is yours (even though I haven’t gotten you anything for a long time – I figure I might still want to, sometime in the future).

When you get the birthday reminder email from Amazon, one of the things you can do is ask your would-be gift recipient, if you know their email address, to create their own wish list. (I have a wish list, but I never even look at it anymore; I just sometimes send things that catch my eye to my wish list. It must be full of all kinds of dumb stuff that I probably don’t even want anymore, or maybe bought.) So, I was just asking you if you’d create your own wishlist. :-)

My mother has trained me well, to always go all the way inside the P.O., so it was no hardship to take your card into the P.O. :-)

I’m glad you had a good time with your friends in Old Saybrook. I didn’t know you went. I see that your kid FB’s with your friend sometimes – was glad to see that.

Fondly, 90hazelnut

This has been a fiction by 90hazelnut.

č 2009 (December 8) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to River View Dave, 2009

Hi River View Dave,

I really enjoyed your long email - I was glad to read about what you're doing. You probably could have stopped by. I told my spouse a number of nice things about you, so I think he would be favorably inclined towards you.

I thought I'd attend the meeting on Friday morning. Will you be in town on that day?

Best wishes, 90hazelnut

This is fictional writing by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 7) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091207

Hi friend, I'm having a good Monday morning, doing my weekly big cleaning. I have vacuumed a number of rooms and done laundry, so far. Writing to you is a nice break.

For my first time today, I tried vacuuming while listening to music on my iPod. I thought I would hate it, because of my aversion to loud sounds, but it's been very pleasant so far. In fact, the iPod helps drown out the vacuum noise. I started my aerobic cleaning to Blue Oyster Cult "Spectres" - high energy music.

I'm glad you got so much done in your house, that you wanted to. I'm also glad you were able to do as much running on Sunday as on Saturday - and you went hunting, too! I now virtually always leave the YMCA having showered, with our winter weather patterns upon us. I feel pretty warm the whole time I'm there, now - not chilled- thank goodness. Yesterday morning, a winter cloud sailed in from the west - it looked almost like one of the hail clouds I used to see in TX, with scalloped bottom. It's been raining off and on, since - sometimes hard, but with breaks. In fact, right now it's partly sunny. However, our newspaper has all black umbrellas for the whole work week. So be it! K1 is very happy with the change to rainy weather. I like the rain, myself. I also exercised at the gym on Saturday and Sunday, but I let myself have a gentle and slow workout on Sunday - I needed it. That's not to say I was at the gym any less than 2 hours on Sunday.

I'm glad your spouse was so happy with the new condition of the basement that she even ventured to exercise there. She must be very pleased. How nice that you did that big cleanup, for all of you.

I'm very glad that your brother can get the new furniture he wanted, in this economy, especially after having been without work. I hope he enjoys his new furniture a lot.

I hope you are having a nice Monday, friend - Mine is nice - 90hazelnut.

This has been a fictional construct by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 7) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Allman Brothers "Blue Sky" lyrics (Eat a Peach)

Allman Brothers "Blue Sky" lyrics (Eat a peach)

Walk along the river - sweet lullaby - it just keep on flowing - it don't worry 'bout where it's going - no, no.
Don't fly, Mister blue bird, I'm just walking down the road - Early morning sunshine tell me all I need to know.

You're my blue sky, you're my sunny day - Lord, you know it makes me high - when you turn your love my way.
Turn your love my way, yeah.

Good old Sunday morning - bells are ringing everywhere.
Goin' to Carolina; it won't be long and I'll be there.

You're my blue sky, you're my sunny day - Lord, you know it makes me high - when you turn your love my way
Turn your love my way, yeah.

~This song used to play an important part in my life, and I still like it very much. -90hazelnut~

© 2009 (December 6) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to a friend, 20091205

Hi friend, it was great to talk with you and text with you yesterday! Then there's the constant stream of nice emails ... :-) I'm lovin' it ...

I'm just back from the YMCA. I had a long and hard one today - two hours. Only half of that was cardio. I majorly changed my weights routine this past week. So my workouts are evolving and progressing. My left knee is still weak, but I am pretty easy on it, so I think it's still healing okay.

I played my iPod for the first time at the gym today. It made a big, fun difference! I was all big smiles, again and again. I had to stop my hands from playing the drum tracks so I wouldn't appear "touched". ;-) There's always the threat of me conducting the music, or "playing" one of the instruments, if I am listening to my iPod. Conducting unseen orchestras ... :-) It's a good thing my hands stay mostly occupied at the YMCA, ha ha. I found I had to take off the iPod in the weight room, because people kept trying to make pleasantries with me. I'd rather trade a few nice sentences with my fellow exercisers, and I don't need the help of the music in the weights room.

K3 is in the holiday parade in our town today. She will be marching with the play kids, wearing her associated shirt. There are so many groups that are in the parade. K1 has marched in it, in previous years. The parade gets a big community turn-out. It's still a little foggy, but the sun is trying to come out, and it's for sure not raining. I remember one year we were trying to sell our previous house (2001), and we attended the parade - the house was open - it was so heavily rainy and gloomy that day- we were conscious of trying not to bring our muck into our "show" house when we came back. Our seasonal rain has not really begun yet, though we had one big rain storm on October 13.

K3 is occupied with her play events for much of the day and the evening today. They have a special event this evening - a movie and fun night, where you have to bring your own beach towel (maybe because it's a play about surfing?). It still strikes me as kind of novel that the youngest is doing all these middle-aged-kid things now. Then soon enough, she too will be off to her own life ... I am trying to soak up each nice moment with her, and store it away as a fond memory.

I am feeling So good at the moment! :-) I had such a nice day already, and it's not even 9 a.m. I think it was a big morale boost to get all that specialized attention from my special friend yesterday - along with all the other positive or neutral things that are going on in my life. Right now I'm just glad to be relatively strong and able, and I am feeling grateful for that.

I hope you have a blessed day, and I'll be sending out those prayers. Thank you very much for yours; they are much appreciated.

Much love, 90hazelnut

This has been a fictional construct by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 5) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to a friend, 20091204

Hi friend, thank you for thinking of me, and for the 2 nice emails.

For my second day, I have been on a little bit of a mental downer, and I have been hard on myself. I like to think I still appear mostly positive and with quite a few smiles, around my family and in public. K2 caught me with a few tears in my eyes yesterday, but I endeavored to change that, and I got the smiles and jokes back, within a short while, and displayed them for him, yesterday and today.

I am currently somewhat bummed that I seem to be nowhere near where I want to be, in several realms, and I let myself feel a little bit bad about that. I soon reverse the mood, after realizing that I AM, after all, still making positive progress. Still, the sad mood came upon me some 2 - 3 times in the past 24 hours, and I had to spend precious time and mental resources, fighting it off. I DID prevail, though.

I am living in the positive - and also, exercising as prescribed. I am doing my chores with a sense of gratitude that I Can do them. So, BIG smiley face, for yesterday and today, and for you. :-)

All my love, 90hazelnut

P.S. It appears to be firming up that we are going skiing in Tahoe over the Christmas holidays! Awesome! Big Yay!!!

This has been a fictional construct by 90hazelnut.

© 2009 (December 4) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Fictional email from 90hazelnut to All Peach, 20091202

Hi friend, I'm glad you thought your weekend was pretty good, overall. I hope the first few days of the week went well for you all, too.

I'm glad to read that you're running so much and so fast and feeling so strong. I'm glad your knee pain seems to be a thing of the distant past, and that you're doing altogether Great in the physical realm. You are doing a good deal to stave off some of those degenerative diseases, I firmly believe.

- Sigh. I've been doing lower body cardio only every other day, this week, old crippled-by-knee-pain person that I am. If I feel too antsy about not getting into the YMCA 6 days a week, I might let myself go there and do something extremely gentle, like walking on the treadmill for 45 minutes. But with the David Copperfield rereading, I think it might be nice for me to develop myself in another realm, and commit myself to reading "fine" (?) literature, half the week, those very early morning hours. I think it does me a lot of good to keep early hours. I get to reframe my mood after I first wake up, if need be, with some peaceful thinking or reading, by getting up when it's still way dark, before my family is up. I think I can better offer them my better side, that way.

K3 had her piano lesson yesterday. They are working on Christmas songs. I think K3 is doing very well indeed, for such a recent beginner. At home she moans that she wants to quit piano, then at lessons she does brilliantly and receives high and affectionate praise, and is big smiles. K3 seems to have a lot of music in her. She says she tries to get her classmates to sing, by singing. What a nice visual! :-)

I will commit to say 15 little prayers a day, each day in December, except yesterday, upon inspiration from you, for you and your family (and me and my family and all the struggling families). I hope to write some of my little prayers down, to have a nice thing to carry in my pocket for a while. What a nice thing to do - to shoot little prayers repeatedly through the day! I now see why Catholics seem to take comfort in their rituals. The rituals get you refocused on God, that many times a day. (I generally pray several times a day, but I don't generally have a structure to the praying, that helps me stay focused on anything.)

Love, 90hazelnut

This has been a fictional construct by 90hazelnut; have a nice day! :-)

© 2009 (December 2) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for the Novena

Thank you for the link to the Saint Andrew Christmas Novena. It is a very good idea to repeat this several times a day, it seems. [Myself, I think a little too much fuss is made about the blessed mother of Jesus, but that's just those of us other Christians ...]

I hope you are having a good day. I am having a blessed one, already. (But then again, I can't help but feeling blessed after being immersed in David Copperfield since last week. This morning I am on page 444 - K1 is on page 496. She is saying, "Wasn't Steerforth a jerk?!" and I answer, "Steerforth is indeed a bad fellow!")

© 2009 (December 2) 90hazelnut.blogspot.com, All Rights Reserved.