#76 - Change the beneficiary on my 401k plan.

Took me long enough, but this one is finally finished. YAY.

#77 - Do my own taxes

Well, my 2007 Federal & State taxes are submitted! I have to do local & send in what I owe for my PA taxes, but other than those 2 easy things, I'm finished. I'm going to mark this as completed because I'll be done with it by the end of the night. I was kind of nervous about doing this myself, but I think it worked out really well and was much easier than I thought!

Major props to State Farm for letting me file Federal & State online with Turbo Tax for free.


---- EDIT: It's 3/31/2008 - I've gotten my refund, my State taxes check has been cashed, and I sent my Local taxes (I was even). Sweet.

#73 - Try 5 new non-chain restaurants. (3/5)

After the St. Patrick's Day Parade yesterday, Mike, Mom & I met up with the rest of the Tap Pups at a very nice bar/restaurant in Harrisburg - Stocks on Second. Mom and I had drinks and then we got a table and ordered dinner and an appetizer. Everything was delicious and we left full & happy. Prices were a bit high, but definitely worth it (helps that mom treated us. :-).

#25 - Visit Cindi in VA

I visited Cindi at the very beginning of March! I blogged about it in a post here:
http://tenthz.livejournal.com/1023971.html
on my personal blog. Lots of fun!

Faking It

Faking It, by Jennifer Crusie

I picked this up in a lot full of books I got from someone on craigslist. I thought it looked like a quick read and a nice break from reading All The President's Men. It was!

Not much to say about this one. I was surprised when it turned into much more of a "romance novel" than I had expected (mostly because I didn't read the entire book jacket!), but it was entertaining, kept my attention, and had an interesting plot with lots of twists and turns.

Back to reading All The President's Men now!

#72 - Try 12 new recipes (and actually use the recipe). (4/12)

This afternoon, I whipped up a batch of Chocolate Chip Muffins. I got to use muffin pan that I got for Christmas for the first time. I used muffin cups to reduce the clean-up. I really hate cleaning muffin pans. They turned out really well - very rich, though. Probably only need about half the chocolate chips.

Ingredients:
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/3 cup light-brown sugar
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2/3 cup milk
* 1/2 cup butter -- melted and cooled
* 2 eggs - beaten
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 package (12 oz) chocolate chips
* 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans -- chopped (optional)


Preheat oven to 400 F. and grease up twelve muffin cups.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, stir together milk, eggs, butter, and vanilla until blended. Make a well in center of dry ingredients; add milk mixture and stir just to combine. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Spoon batter into muffin cups; bake 15-20 minutes, or until a knife inserted in center of one muffin comes out clean. Remove muffin tin to wire rack; cool 5 minutes and remove from tins to finish cooling.

Serve warm.

(Source: http://66.206.5.232/superdisplay.asp?recipeid=239)