Update - almost spring, 2011!

the time has gone so swiftly!.....our family had major moments!  we had the engagement of our katie giordano and then the birth of our katie giordano kelly!.....then the wedding of katie giordano, now katie adams!!!!

i have been in new york monday through thursday or friday of each week, staying with barby and
sean and helping with little katie kelly while barby is at work since october, 2010.   taking care of little
 katie and helping to plan big katie's wedding----didn't leave much time to blog!

i'm going to set forth all the wonderful aspects of katie kelly's birth and katie adams' wedding  here in the
near future.

taking care of an infant is soooo much different now then when i had children over 30 years ago!
all the new rules!

and the wedding was quite an experience!.....there were some hiccups and one disappointment but
for the most part, our vendors were really wonderful and the family and friends pulled their talents
to make it a magical, lovely night----but most important were katie and her ray!......well, more about
that later..... if anyone is planning a wedding in the bronx or brooklyn, they might find our experiences
helpful.....

Ham Loaf Recipe

one of our family favorites has always been ham loaf.....it has a brown sugar syrup and i usually made macaroni and cheese to go with it......
our sean patrick kelly is a true new yorker and he does have some limitations on what he will eat!.....when we talked about
ham loaf, he grimaced and said he didn't think that was for him....
after our little katie scarlett arrived and i went up with foods for the fridge and freezer, one of the items being ham loaf,
he did try it and absolutely fell in love with it!
i buy the ground ham mixture at l.d. weaver's meats at the west shore farmer's market and was there on friday morning
when i ran into a former customer, delightful gal by name of celeste......we were chatting and i was telling her about the
ham loaf.....she never had it so i sent her right over to l.d. weaver's!
i thought perhaps i would share this recipe..... it is so tasty, even our new yorker loves it!

Ham Loaf (l.d. weavers' recipe)

2 lb. ham loaf mixture
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup bread crumbs

form into a loaf (i usually square off my ends so all my slices are uniform and i don't have a small tapered piece)

boil together for 5 minutes:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup water
1/4 t. dry mustard (optional)

pour this sugar syrup mixture over formed loaf pan in roasting pan or pyrex.  bake at 350* for 60-90 minutes, depending on oven.    baste often!   syrup will get bubbly and thicken.



i just made two of these loaves so i can take some up tuesday morning when i head back to new york.

katie kelly arrives

our barbara and sean had their beautiful daughter in lawrence hospital center in bronxville, new york on saturday,
august 7, 2010.....her name is Katherine Giordano Kelly....she was born at 10:42 a.m., weighing in at 9 lbs. 4 oz. and is
21 and one quarter inches long.....

we are all so overjoyed!!!.....the kelly family is doing well .....barby and sean were so cute!!! they would not lay the
baby down!...one of them was always holding her.....one would hold her and the other parent would sleep and then
they would change places!!!.....

we were all up in bronxville for the birth and i stayed til tuesday night.....then went back up that saturday and stayed til
the following tuesday......then didn't get back up til the following monday but stayed til friday.......then the whole family
came to harrisburg on friday, september 4th for labor day weekend.....sean went back to new york that monday and
barby and little katie stayed til thursday when i drove them back home.....then i stayed til monday night.......

everything with babies has changed so much!....it's a wonder my children and their generation survived!!!!...we used to
put the babies on their tummies....that's a no-no now...only on their backs.......no water at all......i am trying to
help but everything we did is no longer current so i'm learning right with them!.....

the plan is for me to be in new york three days per week taking care of this precious baby while barby
returns to work......diane (grandma kelly) is going to care for little katie on fridays and, possibly, on thursdays as well......

this is certainly what retirement should be all about!!!.......daughters getting married, daughters having babies,
spending time with grandchildren!....what bliss!!!!!

katie is engaged!

so much has been happening in our family and i have not been posting to this blog........




our katie is engaged to her ray!! he had stack rings custom made for her and they are in rose gold and absolutely beautiful and quite unique!...
they were going to wait until next summer to marry but, then, decided why wait?  so they are going to marry in
brooklyn (park slope) on december 18, 2010!....
we found a venue near them...montauk club....it's a wonderful old (1898) gentlemen's club from old brooklyn of
by-gone days.....it has a lot of character and charm....a bit of worn patina....katie and ray just love it!


it was quite educational when researching where to have the reception....katie liked the boathouse at prospect park but you must pay a fee (5,000-6,000) and use their exclusive caterer (200.00 per head) and then the liquor, floral, photographer, music and, before you can turn around, you need 45-50 thousand dollars!.....and that does
not include the gown, of course! or any of the incidentals!......


the montauk club has a very innovative chef and we attended a brunch there and i was very pleased with the quality of foods, i.e., good slab bacon, micro greens, etc.  ray and katie attended a dinner there and ray even
took photos of their plates !!! (he will fit so well into this family!) and they were also quite pleased with the quality and presentation and taste of the foods (corn and leek chowder and lobster corn risotto) which were also seasonal.


when our barbara was married in 2009 and we had gone dress shopping, we had gone to klinefeld's which was
a really awful experience!....put us in a too small room and brought out gowns that were not in our price range and were not what barbara had in mind at all!......we then went to sak's fifth avenue and had an appointment with
imo.........what a wonderful experience! she was an angel!......she really was divine!....barbara chose a couture
gown and saks re-did my headpiece and created a wonderful 1940's style for barbara.......absolutely wonderful!


so, katie made an appointment at sak's fifth avenue as well!.....and, there was "our" imo!......katie found the
gown of her dreams there as well! (this is becoming a giordano tradition!)....katie's gown is not a traditional
bridal wedding gown.....she just loves it and looks fabulous, of course!.....


so, we have the venu and we have the wedding gown.........and,  last weekend they  had fittings for ray~~~
he is having a suit custom made for him by tailors in brooklyn!


we are planning a soiree at our home on saturday, october 16th for our friends and family and ray's parents are coming up from kentucky!!!!....


we are planning a menu that will be a little bit kentucky, little bit new york and little bit harrisburg!~~~we are just
going to have fun with the foods!~


our tina will be in charge of floral and decorations for the montauk club----it is so charming, it won't require much!


so, we are in full wedding mode right now!

one project, which creates many more

many years ago, we decided to create a family room, bedroom and powder room in our basement, along with the laundry room.  it seemed like a great idea at the time but left us with no space for storage.  now that the girls are gone, that bedroom has become the all-time junk room.  i decided to re-do it so i could have a home office as well as organized storage for special dishes, pots, serving pieces, cake stands, etc.  also for wrapping paper, bob's hunting gear......

my original thoughts were that i would clear out the room, clean it real good, put shelving from the shop down there and i'd be good to go!  possibly take me two or three days, at most!......as we were removing stuff, there appeared to be mildew on the outside north wall where the bed was placed close up against the wall.....i absolutely freaked out!.....i called two drywall experts to have them give me an estimate on replacing the drywall in that section since i was convinced we had black mold and it was all toxic!.....i didn't happen to mention any of this to bob---why bother him with this!......

(i didn't know how i was going to get "rid" of the mattress, boxspring and hutch base that were in the room....i called salvation army and they said they would pick the items up and asked me if there were any stains on the mattress---no, not any.....so my dear friends lugged all of this out of the basement and stacked it neatly on the deck ready for pick up, along with bags of books and games.......the salvation army drivers came and took everything--except the mattress, boxspring and hutch base!!!....

i then called the city and they told me they would remove it for 25.00 per item!.....and, all items had to be placed right by the curb!....so, again, my dear friends came to cart all of this from the deck to the curb for the "expensive" pick up......)

the one drywall man told me he would replace it but wouldn't guarantee no more mildew returning.....the second drywall man told me it was just surface dirt from some moisture, could be cleaned  and there was no need to rip out the drywall.....when bob learned of what i was doing, he showed me, by digging a screwdriver into the wall, that it was white underneath and that the "mildew" was most definitely just on the surface of the wall and could be cleaned.....

so, armed with bleach water, i scrubbed....then i purchased tsp solution at the hardware store and washed the walls again.....then i painted them with kills.......then i started to patch.......the girls had hung so many things on the drywall over the years and there were holes everywhere!.....i had never patched before, so it was trial and error but i did a pretty good job!.....in fact, bob asked if i had had someone come in to do it for me!.....

i decided to remove the carpeting since it was musty and twenty years old....so i made arrangements for that to be installed....then i figured i would paint the room before the carpeting was installed.....i found the niftiest thing on sherwin williams---you take a photo of your room and upload it and then you "paint" it---that way you can see what your room would look like!....i had so much fun with that!.....

so, now the room is painted, the old carpeting is removed (thank you, dear friends!) and tomorrow the new carpet is being installed.......one more glitch, though.......when we had the bedroom done originally, the man had built a desk/vanity for barby and bob and i were going to remove that this morning before we ripped up the carpet-----that took over an hour as it was built and then apparently assembled on site and screwed into the walls.....the screws were stripped!.......i asked bob if he would like to become a house flipper in the next life----i won't share what he said!