Fran's blog

Dear kind friends, family, and strangers:

Greta and her classmates are reading books to raise money for the Friends of the World Food Programme as part of Read Along for Hunger. Greta's goal is to read 25 books in the month of October, and we hope you'll consider sponsoring her, either with a dollar pledge amount per book or a flat donation. You can find out more information about the group's mission to end world hunger by visiting From Hunger to Hope.

If you would like to sponsor Greta, please leave a comment or email me at fran dot reed at gmail dot com and I'll send you the info. Unfortunately we just have an old-school pledge form and we need to submit checks (hello, 1982!) to Greta's teacher by November 10th.

Peace and love, peace and love,

Pat, Fran, and Greta

Try to try, my fanny. Sorry, dudes.

The month of August was hands down the most stressful month of my life. I lived to tell the tale, though, but now I'd prefer to just forget the tale.

Here are the highlights of the last month-plus in semichronological order:

• We went to the Sauerkraut Festival in Phelps, New York, and didn't even eat any kraut. We saw some good friends and watched a parade and got more free candy than a family should consume in a year.

• Pat, Greta, and I went to the Dan Zanes concert at the historic Harro East Ballroom and it was a nice, intimate show.

• Pat and I went to the Jessica Lea Mayfield for an even more intimate show at Lovin' Cup.

• We celebrated 8 amazing years of marriage. I can't think of anything else to say about that except for yay us!
• Pat and I went to a wedding for our friends Tim and Shastin at the picturesque Allegany State Park. The reception was at a casino and there were many jaw-dropping moments gawking at the crazy gamblers. Additionally, we danced our faces off and enjoyed an adult-only affair without the worry of dropping an F-bomb and having it come back to haunt us. Sometimes it's the little things.
• Greta wrapped up her last days of daycare and then had a week off with Pat (while I was working 12-14 hours days - whoopee!), and they had some great daddy-daughter quality time. Most notably they went on a road trip to Enchanted Forest for a night. They spent two days at the park and had an absolute blast.

• Pat turned 35, which means he's a year older than me for two months and three days. He's so old.
• Greta went to her first afternoon tea. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but it seemed like a big deal to me. She poured half a cup of hot cocoa down her white dress, but other than that everything went swimmingly.
• Greta seamlessly transitioned into kindergarten. It helps she's going to the kindergarten at her daycare center and is with most of her best buddies, but I appreciated how anticlimactic it was.

• We took our annual trip to Ohio to visit my mom's side of the family. We saw my grandmother, my great aunt, and aunt, and an uncle, and we spent a lot of quality time with my parents. It's hard to pick a highlight from the trip, but I guess I'd have to say the highlight was having a cerveza (or two or five) with my Great Aunt Jean at a Mexican joint in Dayton, Ohio. She's 90 and is the one elderly person who makes Pat and me think we may not need to drive off a cliff together in an old-age pact.
• To round out the list I will share with you Greta's latest artwork from school: a bag person in her likeness! How creepy! How cool!

Ruby approves.

Fran

Sooo, hi.

Here are some things you should know.

I work ALL THE TIME, or at least it feels that way.

Pat might work even more than I do, but it's a close race. A very uncool, close race.

We manage to have a lot of fun despite our workaholic tendencies.

We've been to Letchworth (aka, the Grand Canyon of the East) a couple times this summer. Greta is Little Miss Hiker Girl.

My one silent requirement I never actually announce but that my family just understands is that wherever we go I will blow them off at some point to spend some quality time with rocks. I haven't found any notable fossils lately, but I've found some pretty cool ones, and I'm excited to announce Greta found her first legit fossil rather than a number of rocks that are eroded to sort of look like heart-shaped rocks (which she calls fossils). The one she found was some sort of horn coral embedded in some, um, regular ol' rock.

Greta asked me why I like rocks so much, and I don't know what it is. They just make me happy. I can look at this picture from the lower falls at Letchworth and I feel calmer.

On the nature theme, when we moved into our house there was a dead weeping cherry tree in the front. I am horribly indecisive, and we went to a bunch of places and all of the trees were just so...meh. We went to Oriental Garden Supply and I fell in love. It's such a great place and there is such an amazing selection of really wonderful, different trees, shrubs, and plants. We ended up getting a weeping larch for one side of the turret. For the opposite side we got a contorted filbert. I feel like our yard and sort of coming together. In a very exciting development, this summer I finally realized I enjoy weeding. I always hated it, and no I will not come to your house and weed. We have plenty of weeds here to keep me busy. But I actually enjoy weeding now! It's oddly relaxing! Who knew this?

Here's our new weeping larch.

I've had quite a few culinary hits and misses in the last few weeks. I definitely have enough for another blog. And I promise I will try to try to post another one soon. And yes, I said I'd would try to try.

One last thing I want to mention is I saw a great news story last week about this five-year-old boy who came up with the idea to sell artwork to raise money for multiple sclerosis, the disease his mom suffers from. Connor Grossman is from Rochester, but the story is making national headlines. I will just say I think you should watch this video and check out the Marbles for MS site and consider donating to this worthy cause.

Okie doke, I think that's enough for now.

Fran

This week the CSA bounty was almost as exciting as last week. In our share we got kale, fresh garlic (did you know the garlic you buy at the supermarket is cured?), red and green lettuce, broccoli, more beets, cherries, and a basil plant.

With the kale and garlic, I made greens and beans. I didn't work from a recipe, but it was just a pretty traditional recipe like this one. With the lettuce I just made a bunch o' salads. With the broccoli I made a recipe called Ziti with Broccoli and Ricotta Sauce, which I've made two dozen times from a book called Quick Vegetarian Pleasures illegally reproduced here. (Since I'm an editor and a no-plagiarism ranger, I won't reprint it here, but if I link to someone else who has that's okay enough, right?) Despite what it says in this blog, our family absolutely loves this recipe. It was even tastier than usual with such fresh broccoli. I used this recipe for the beet greens, and I will say this was the first non-winner I've made so far. I made some substitutions and changes, though, so I'll blame myself rather than the recipe.

I've been good about documenting our dinners, but I've been using my phone camera, which is super low budget, I know, but whatever.

Oh! I also found a great use for the bok choy from last week. Last Thursday night I was exhausted, and Pat read my mind and picked up some takeout. He got chicken panang, and I used this fantastic recipe from Steamy Kitchen (I love this site) to make a tasty, healthy side dish.

This weekend we went to a great baby shower for cousin Rory and his super lovely wife Jennie. You may remember them from such weddings as Rory and Jennie's wedding. We all had a wonderful time, and I regret I didn't get a picture of the expecting, but look at these cute family members of mine.

We stayed at the party later than Greta's normal bedtime and she also got more sugar than she is used to, and she sort of tweaked. Hilarity ensued. I have a bunch of short movies of her drunk-tired and hopped up on sugar. Here are two. My brother Phil is not hopped up on sugar; he is always  game for some fanny spinning.

Untitled from Fran Reed on Vimeo.

Untitled from Fran Reed on Vimeo.

Other highlights from this weekend include Pat and Greta doing some yard camping, which Greta was super excited about; picnicking and fireworks; and working slightly less than normal.

Fran

This past week we got our first summer share of our CSA from The Good Food Collective. It was definitely the highlight of my week. I was so excited to get fresh organic fruits and veggies, and the bounty did not disappoint. This past week I really enjoyed meal planning for the first time in ages. I also enjoyed finding new recipes and even trying some new veggies (garlic scapes and Swiss chard) for the first time ever. In addition to the garlic scapes and Swiss chard, we got strawberries, bok choy, lettuce, and beets.

I thought I would post the links to the new recipes I tried this week. They were all winners.

In addition to throwing the garlic scapes into everything I could think of from marinades to raw in salads, I also made garlic scape pesto, which beats the pants off of basil pesto if you ask me (and I LOVE basil). I used the pesto on spaghetti, used it as sauce for a pizza, and even mixed it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil to make a salad dressing.

Beets are a huge favorite of ours. We love to roast them and eat them with some goat cheese, and we also had a roasted beet salad with orange dressing.

The Swiss chard recipe was amazing, but that might be because it called for white wine, butter, and cheese, and I also threw some bacon in for good measure.

We didn't have the bok choy yet, so I am currently auditioning recipes. If you have any good ones, please share.

The strawberries didn't make it into any recipes because we just stuffed them in our faces.

I can't wait for this week's share!

Friday night went to a very cool art show for a group called Sweet Meat Co. I was a little worried we'd be the old non-hipsters there with the kid, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a wide variety of people there. And Greta wasn't the only kid, even. We actually ran into at least a dozen people we know, too. Hey, we're still awesome! Good to know.

Here is Greta contemplating the art.

I wish I took some photos of show itself because it was such a cool setup, but I am terrified of getting yelled at for photographing artwork. I once got reprimanded for taking a picture of Greta in a gallery, and I was horrified. I hate getting yelled more than pretty much anything ever. Anyway, it was a great show, and you will just have to take my word for it.

Saturday Greta and I headed to my parents' house for a few hours. We were planning on going to a McCarthy family reunion, but due to a scheduling snafu, we were a day early for the reunion. Woopsie. It was actually nice to just have lunch at my parents' house and let Greta run around the yard for a bit with no agenda.

This week I've been a completely cranky stress case. I don't know what to say about that except I hope I stop soon because I am sure my family is not a fan of my mood and I can hardly stand myself.

Fran

This past weekend Greta had her big dance recital, which went off without a hitch. She did a great job and had a blast. Greta's grandparents all came to show their support.

Greta got SO many flowers. It was sort of ridiculous...ridiculously awesome. Look: the bouquet is bigger than Greta's head.

She got flowers from her dear mom and dad, both sets of grandparents, her friend Sophie's parents and her friend Sophie's grandparents. Greta just got more flowers than I've gotten in my entire life.

Right after the recital we had a late lunch, or linner, or dunch, if you will. Since it was Father's Day weekend and all my favorite dads were in attendance, I thought it would be nice to step it up a notch, and we had beef tenderloin with two kinds of butter (roasted garlic and horseradish), taders, haricot vert, macaroni and cheese (per Greta's request), and fruit salad (also per Greta's request).

We also had a big family jam session (Pat on guitar, Grandpa Reed on ukulele, Greta on harmonica, and Grandma McCarthy on mini accordion) and we looked through various fossil collections (Grandpa McCarthy's, Greta's, and mine). Do we know how to have fun or not? In case there is any question in your mind, the answer is yes.

On Sunday, when it was just the three of us, Greta and I surprised Pat with breakfast in bed, and then we went to Letchworth State Park. We hiked.

We dined on ice cream.

We hung with the hippies.

We found more fossils. (Not pictured.)

We loved it.

Fran

I've been meaning to update for ages, if no other reason so that when my mom comes to the site she doesn't have to see that awful "...or are you just happy to see me" joke. Oh well. Things have been busy again, but what's new? I sound like a broken record.

Things have been good. A couple weeks ago we went out to Pat's parents' camp, and we all had a great time. There is such a nice community out there, and I love hanging out with the Reeds, drinking beer, eating hamburgers, sitting by the fire, and catching up. Also, Pat's dad always has some great stories that start like, "Did I ever tell you about John Prell, the punch-drunk fighter who burned his meat?" (That one was so good I had to write it down.)

Greta got to fish with her grandpa, and unlike last year, when she quickly caught three fish, this time the fish were just stealing her worms.

No fishies.

The highlight for me was I was reading my book, Remarkable Creatures, and Greta asked me what it was about. I told her it's about fossils, and then I told her a little about fossils. Greta got all jazzed up about looking for fossils. I figured we'd poke around a bit and not find anything, but we actually found some good fossils. (Well, I found part of a trilobite, Pat found part of what I think is some coral, and Greta found a bunch of rocks she thought were pretty). It rekindled my fascination with fossils that started in high school, and now I can't stop thinking about them.

I loved how focused on finding fossils Greta was.

Last weekend we went to Hamlin Beach, and the first rock I picked up and turned over was a fossil. It looks like some sort of wormy larva dude (technical term). I then proceeded to pick up probably three hundred more rocks and got nothin'.

Also last weekend we went to a fantastic wedding reception. My friend Dottie (who won the honor of Favorite New Friend of 2009 [Yes, I give out superlatives like these in my head. Sorry if we met in 2009 and you did not win. I'm sure it was an honor for you just to be nominated.]) and her husband Bryce were married in Italy la few weeks ago, and they had the most beautiful reception that was made out of fancy. Look how handsome we all are. The fancy even rubbed off on us.

Well, almost.

And now we're almost caught up. So, this Saturday we realized we had nothing really going on, so we decided to take a day trip to Ithaca to go fossil hunting, hiking, hang out in the Commons, and eat at Moosewood. It was a beautiful day as we drove the almost two hours. Then when we got to Taughannock Falls and stepped out of the car, it started sprinkling. By the time we got to the first small set of falls, it was full-blown raining. By the time we got a bit down the first trail, it was pouring. We tried to stick it out for a half hour or so, but it was MISERABLE and we decided to retreat. By the time we got back to the car, we were all drenched to our skivvies. Bust.

And then we went to Moosewood, my favorite restaurant. Surely the meal would revive this otherwise crappy day, but we had our first mediocre meal there. Disappointment.

But with all the bad, it was oddly good. Even though we all had fits of grumpiness (well, Greta and I did at least), we also had ridiculous fits of laughter that was directly related to the rain and being soaked.

Also, we found out Greta is a harmonica prodigy. The rain must have been her muse.

In conclusion, this is too long. Sorry.

Fran

Some things in no particular order:

I did indeed start editing the book. People who said editing is harder than writing weren't joking around. And here I thought they were just kissing up to me. So far it's slow going and I'm thinking the end result is going to be mediocre at best, but I will finish—or die trying.

I also came up with an idea for book number 2. It's still very intangible and far fetched, but I have an idea! That's sort of a big deal for me.

This past Friday we went to the artists' reception for the show Greta's picture is in. It was really fun to see Greta's photo in person as well as the entire series. Each photo was better than the next. And it was so fun to see the kids there and get to see their personalities and see how excited they were. The photographer has posted some of the images here. I love them all. And I sneaked a picture of my favorite little model in front of her photo.

We have butterflies! Greta got a butterfly habitat for her birthday from her friend Sophie, and the next day we sent away for the butterflies in waiting. We got our larvae and we've been enjoying their metamorphosis over the last couple weeks. On Monday the first two butterflies appeared, and today the third and final butterfly made its appearance. It has been really, really cool, but they're really, really freaky to me. I mean, this is a face only a mother could love, no?

I do thoroughly enjoy these little critters, though.

Did I mention they're creepy, though?

Even more exciting than the butterflies, if you like technology and don't fear change, is that we got a new TV. We are notorious for our ridiculously dumb outdated TV. The thing is, I like our old cruddy TV. But Pat has been trying to talk me into buying a new TV for years, and he was so stupidly excited when we got our tax return and found the perfect TV. Anyway, I was reluctant but I couldn't squelch Pat's dreams for a modern TV anymore even though Greta cried when she heard the news (we do fear change). The TV arrived today, and it is so big. It came while Pat was at work and I IM'd him complaining about how big it is. Here is the transcript of our conversation:

Fran: it's like half the length of the living room

Pat it'll be perfect

Pat: i studied the viewing distance charts

Pat: i used scientifically proven methods

Fran: okay okay

We got it all set up, and Pat and I watched for five minutes. Here is the transcript from this conversation:

Fran: it's giving me a headache

Pat: me too

Pat: we'll get used to it

Fran: [groan] champagne problems

Fran

What do we have here? Two blog entries in one week. I think I deserve a cookie.

As I mentioned, we were looking forward to going to Imagine RIT this weekend, and it did not disappoint. Pat was able to take off from his exhibiting duties for part of the day, and we got to have lunch with him and walk around for a bit with someone who knows the campus very well. I am notoriously good at getting lost and have a horrible sense of direction, so even though I am at RIT multiple days of the week and really should know my way around by now, I still find myself bumbling around, even when I have a map in my hand. Luckily for Greta and me, there are enough fun things to do in every square foot of that festival, my crap navigation skills are moot.

Highlights include sharing a lunch table with some RIT old timers and hearing some great RIT history, listening to some nerdy (I use this adjective in a completely affectionate manner) college boys singing an a cappella version of "Fat Bottomed Girls," watching a quidditch game, professing my love for the RIT publication Reporter to an exhibitor for the publication and getting a free Reporter t-shirt, watching Pat sort of diss YNN's Getaway Guy, getting a photo with YNN's Dan Eaton, and seeing Greta's maturity and good sense when we went to the area where there were a bunch of bounce house things and when G saw the lines, she said, "Those lines are too long. Let's go do something else." I love seeing glimpses of sensibility in my child.

An honorable mention goes to Greta's heavy petting session with some blue cotton candy.

In case you don't believe we met thee Dan Eaton, here's your proof.

As we were walking up to the YNN table, Mike O'Brien (commonly known as the Getaway Guy) gave us a big hello, and Pat didn't recognize him and said, "We're here to see Dan." Haa. Maybe you had to be there.

Here's a picture from the quidditch game. Although they didn't fly, they did use brooms.

Overall, it was a great day and lived up to even my lofty expectations.

It was such a nice day with Greta it felt like that was my Mother's Day, but then we had special Mother's Day plans as well. We went to see my parents and went out for linner, or dunch  if you prefer, at Elderberry Pond. It was Greta's first sort of long meal out at a restaurant sans crayons. She had some ants in her pants, but she didn't try to set the place on fire or anything like that, so she gets points for that.

Ooh, it's getting late and I will hopefully have another update tomorrow, but I will leave it at this for now and just mention that after some friendly nudging by Pat Reed and Taryn, I feel like it is finally time to get back to the book project and start phase one of editing, which means I have to start getting up early again. So I bid you adieu. Night!

Fran

Oh, hello. I can't help but notice that my formal favorite outlet has gone down the crapper. Sorry about that. 2011 has been unpleasantly busy and just, well, unpleasant. The last thing I want to do at night, when I finish work around 11 PM or so, is collect my thoughts and write a blog. Also, the internal narrator I've had for the last 8 years or so has left the building. (Seriously, usually it's like an episode of Parker Lewis Can't Lose in my head.) So even on the rare occasion I've had time to write, I've had nothing to say. So there's that. But the last two weeks have finally calmed down, and while my internal narrator is still at large, I think I have enough things going on I can piece something together.
 
Birthday parties galore. We had two really fun parties for Greta, and there are some fantastic pictures that I really need to post somewhere to share. For Greta's friend party, her favor bags contained whoopee cushions, fake mustaches, and nerd glasses. Seeing the nerdy, mustachioed kids having fun was the highlight of my life. So cute. What is not so cute is that we have six kid birthday activities in the month of May. Ridiculous. The party we went to this past Sunday lasted entirely too long and there was a clown—a very rude clown. He bounced back and forth between hitting on me and insulting me. He insulted everyone at the party, I think. He called certain kids stupid and ugly. He told inappropriate jokes about religion, politics, mothers-in-law, and death...not to mention boogers and farts (the latter of which are usually hilarious), and his delivery was atrocious. Also, he had the worst case of dry mouth I have ever seen. He was literally frothing at the mouth. It was so...uncomfortable. Lesson, kids? Don't hire a clown under any circumstances...unless it's a nice, normal, good clown. (Is that an oxymoron?)
 
Greta had her first semi-legitimate modeling gig! When I say semi-legitimate, I don't mean like in college when you'd get $50 and someone would photograph your feet for three hours (not that I did that). I mean like in the sense that it was just for fun and no money was exchanged. Anyway, a friend of a friend was looking for kiddo models, and Greta had the opportunity to pose for her. The photographer, Hannah Betts, was great, and we can't wait to see the finished product at the opening of the show later this month. She posted a sneak peak of the show on her blog, which happens to be a photograph of Greta! I am SO excited. Does Greta make a great mad face or what? I love it.
 
This past weekend Pat helped make history by playing in the world's largest dodgeball game at RIT. Greta and I got to cheer from the stands, and it was quite a sight to be seen (and quite a smell to be smelled) with more than 2,000 playing for about two hours. It was quite impressive. There is a really cool video of it here. I love watching the time-lapse video of how the sides moved in waves. It was even cooler in person.
 
Okay, I guess I'll leave it at one more thing for tonight. This Saturday is Imagine RIT, aka my favorite festival in Rochester. Pat is going to be an exhibitor again this year, and he's been working like crazy to prepare. No exaggeration, he came home at 1:30 AM two nights ago and I woke up, looked at the clock, and said, "You're home early." And the sad thing is I was being sincere. The good news is I'm sure it's going to be a great exhibit and also, for Pat's hard work he, Greta, and I were all given VIP status for the festival. We get high-roller parking and get to wear fancy badges with brains on them and get to get free high-roller food from Mario's in some high-roller tent. High rollers! Woot! Woot! It's a really fun event, whether you're a high roller or not, so you should come. (I had a blast slumming it as a commoner the last three years.)
 
All right, that's it for now. I will try to upload some recent pictures soon and I've got a few more stories in my pocket. I'm sure all two readers left are thrilled.
 
Honk if you...like honking!
 
Fran