Dear Mom,
It's yellow in Nashville.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Happy Halloween!




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,




Whenever I had a chance to write-in a candidate, I voted for Puppies.

Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
This is what Ron did on Sunday while I worked in my studio and ran errands and the house got messier and the dog got more hyper.




It will house the stuff currently in the garage so he has room to turn it into a studio. Perhaps one day the 'ped shed will be my studio, but even before then I will probably set up a table with my electroforming equipment so I can use it but it won't be in our living space.
Progress, however slowly, is being made.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
I just sent my first package to Australia! So now there are a few people in Canada, one person in Finland, one in Italy, a couple in France and one in Australia wearing my jewelry. I think that's pretty exciting.

Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,





Jenny Holzer sculpture at Cheekwood Gardens
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
And then Dog said,




"Clean underpants, schmunderpants. Let there be Fence!"

And so there was fence.
There was fence from the house to the garage.




And there was fence behind the garage.




And Dog was pleased.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
When you've had a real crap day, you can have this for dinner.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
I went outside this morning to get the mail, and what greeted me on the front step?






That's right. The Vegetable Fairy visited and left us ten ears of corn.
I have no idea who did it! Talk about Southern Hospitality.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
I'm back on the wagon! Saturday I went to my first ever spinning group, which was sort of humbling because not only have I not spun in front of strangers before, I haven't spun since last fall. And, man, was it tricky getting started again! But progress was made: yarn just needing to be plied, and a new friend named Molly.






Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Perhaps the best thing so far about living in the south:




It's true: they are crisp *and* delicious!
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
And then God said,
Let there be clean underpants!




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
I do believe the Dust Buster is one of the top inventions of all time. How I made it this long without one is beyond me.

Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
It is our last night here.
I'm going to miss this place:
the views
the space
the freedom.
The waves of migrating birds and the loudest toads I've ever heard.
The other animals who have cohabitated with us for a time:
a painted turtle,
someone's homing pigeon,
friends who come and go.
As we scrub away our tracks,
I regret the photos I didn't take,
and hope the memories will stay clear
without becoming a burden upon the next home.

Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
It's blizzarding here today.




Unbelievable.

Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
The weather here is beautiful, I'm working my tail off for Hot Dog Day, and trying to help grad friends when they need it.

This is now an old photo, as it is from the set from the last trip to NYC, but I need to get back into the swing of posting. And I am in love with this image.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,




Waiting for the subway. nadine, me, ron. new books.
love,
ruth

Dear Mom,




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
I would say this might be a omen for Ron's 33rd year.
Beginning





End





Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
A conversation:
Me: I need to post to the blog, but I don't know what to say. Nothing happened today [that she doesn't know about].
Ron: Talk about how sexy I am.
Me: What should I say?
Ron: What shouldn't you say? Spill it.

There you go. I am going to ignore the undertones of weirdness of my husband wanting my mom to know he's sexy.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
I'm back, I promise. The late-winter blahs took their hold and I couldn't get rid of them.
Last week the snow was slowly melting, and in the back yard all these orbs appeared.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
The Buffalo news tonight specifically said Andover was going to have a low temperature tonight of -12. I think that's the first time they've mentioned Andover. Man, and it's for something like that! Brrr!
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Please say hello to Courtney! Don't stay up too late; I know how it is having the east coast hanging out with the west coast.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Meet Shackleton.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Last night when we were going to Dan and Corey's house for dinner, all of Hornell was under a swarm of thousands of crows. It was one of the strangest sights we've ever seen.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
This is what I was wearing to work in the studio today (from top to bottom):
wool hat
green sweatshirt
orange and grey wool sweater
green wool sweater
short sleeved shirt
long sleeve shirt
another long sleeve shirt
tank top
long johns
jeans
athletic socks
wool boot socks
work boots.
My work boots by Simple are so old every layer of the soles is coming apart, and on my left foot the front part was flapping every time I took a step, so I duct taped it back together.

I was not cold.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Thanks for having me, 33 years ago, even though it was blizzarding. I appreciate it.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
In honor of my birthday, and to combat the stir-crazies, we drove up to Rochester today. It's always fun to have new things to look at. I was going to wear my cowl, but it was havaing trouble getting along with my coat, so I wore the Lake Effect scarf instead, seeing as it was more appropriate anyway for being near the lake.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Yesterday after work I went to the paper studio to have a felting afternoon with angie and dallas. (We used the paper studio because there are huge "sinks"--like 4' x 8'--for papermaking.) My piece didn't shrink as much as we expected, but that's okay. I made this huge cowl; it's one big tube, made that way because of a piece of plastic in the middle acted as a resist. It was pretty fun. You can wear it a whole myriad of ways, some sillier than others. This is one of the Not Silly ways:




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Tonight we cheated and ate sprouts before they were very big. Those broccolis weren't broccolis. They were the radishes. Man alive, were they radishes. So good! We had salads with baked tofu, and then talked about what other things those baby spicy radishes would be good on. Ron would like a tofu sandwich, and I would like them in ramen soup.

Thanks for our Christmas present. :)
Love,
Ruth
p.s. I just finished my Lake Effect scarf, so tomorrow I will weave in the ends and take pictures. Thanks for that yarnie Christmas present!

Dear Mom,




Now, I know this isn't the best shot, artistically, but look at those little trumpet shaped flowers. Aren't they just hollering to become jewelry forms?
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,




Broccoli.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
A new design. It's called Sweetie Heartie.






Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,








Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Grow little beans, grow! Then we shall all eat Pho!




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Tonight, Dallas, Ron and I went to the movies, except the listing was wrong and they weren't playing the movie we were going to see. We were already in Hornell, so we went bowling. I started strong, winning the first game, but was so bad by the third game it was embarrassing. At one point the ball slipped out of my hands backwards. I laughed, and so did a whole bunch of strangers.

It was still fun to be out of the house for a couple hours.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Today came in like a lamb. A pink fluffy lamb.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Today blew in like a lion. Goodbye, warm weather.




Love,
Ruth

Dear mom,
More studies in monochrome.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Today it was in the 60s! It broke all sorts of records.
I did a bunch a smaller to-do tasks today: finished watching the netflix DVD so we could return it, knitting some on my Lake Effect scarf, proofreading, photoshoots of jewelry, photoshopping, posting new pieces to etsy, getting a package ready to mail out, writing bills, doing laundry, ordering the digital camera while there is a free printer rebate, learning how to drive the tractor, and working in the studio. Easy dinner of potstickers and ramen soup, and tv watching with a little more knitting. Phew!
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Some work in progress.




Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Today, after Ron sent out another package, we decided to celebrate by having a change of scenery. We drove up to Rochester for the day, and it was a really nice day. Well, not so much weather-wise, but not anything treacherous. We packed up all out Christmas gift cards, but unfortunately our electronics we were looking for (little digital camera, wii games) were all sold out. Thank goodness for the internet, but it's more fun to get things in person. If I already owned the little camera, I would have taken a lot a pictures today, mostly of things at the asian grocery store where we were shopping. I found cans of cockles, Wang brand canned weird mushrooms, and canned silkworms. All to eat. Oh, and then afterwards, we ate Korean food (you like my segue?) and one of the many little sampler dishes they bring out before your meal was small whole dried shrimps. I ate some; they were actually good. Not even as fishy as a couple of the other dishes, like the seaweed pile and the triangles of fish cakes. But our dinner was awesome, no doubt about that. I am already excited about tomorrow's leftovers.

I have a bunch of new art ideas, so I am pretty buzzed about that. Tomorrow is studio day, and I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.
Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Here is the yarn I spun for Tanya for Christmas.






Love,
Ruth

Dear Mom,
Happy New Year! And Happy Bloggiversary!
As you know, we had a little bit of a rough start for the year up here on the hill, but I am on the mend and eventually Ron will be too. It's funny how once you screw up your system a cold always goes there--I have belly problems, and Ron gets that hacking cough. It is super cold here, and when I went out to get wood for the stove today I realized I hadn't been outdoors since New Year's eve.

Thank you for a wonderful holiday. I sure am looking forward to knitting this weekend. Ahhh, nothing seems better.




Love,
Ruth
p.s. My resolution is to be more punctual with posting to this blog, although I might have already blown it, since it's the 3rd and all. Well, a little late is better than never. See you here tomorrow.