To Do 261-270

261 - become a Big Sister to a child who needs one
262 - see a meteor crater
263 - bird-watch for sandhill cranes along the Platte River in Nebraska
264 - stand in the center of the Roman Colosseum (done)
265 - find an extra $1,000 in my bank account
266 - ride aboard the Goodyear blimp
267 - have lunch in the restaurant atop Seattle's Space Needle
268 - swing on a trapeze
269 - share a small tent in the wilderness with the one I love
270 - prepare a salad using 20 different ingredients

To Do 221-230

221 - sail the inland waterway down the Eastern Seaboard
222 - give away everything I havent worn in three years
223 - take a pack trip on horseback through Yellowstone National Park
224 - learn to speak French
225 - spend a day as a citizen of Pompeii
226 - get so good at poker I really know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em
227 - shop at the 24-hour L.L. Bean store in Freeport, ME at 3:00 in the morning
228 - make a perfect souffle
229 - sing with a band in a night club (done)
230 - snorkel Australia's Great Barrier Reef

To Do 201-210

201 - work the phones at a charity telethon
202 - learn Arabic so I can write it's beautiful alphabet
203 - canoe the Boundary Waters
204 - hear zydeco music in the bayou country
205 - come home to find dinner ready on the table
206 - hug a redwood
207 - visit Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso in West Africa
208 - shop along Rodeo Drive
209 - program my VCR with ease (done)
210 - ride horseback through Ireland

To Do 191-200

191 - motorcycle across Nevada's desert flats
192 - spend a summer and fall eating only what I've grown in my own garden
193 - learn to draw
194 - observe an American bald eagle in the wild (done)
195 - build a room of my own
196 - eat Oregon apple pie in Portland, then drive north for Washington peach pie in Seattle
197 - be able to help my teenage son with his homework
198 - overcome my shyness (done)
199 - take a bubble bath in Raffles Hotel in Singapore
200 - have an astrologer cast my chart

To Do 171-180

171 - take charge of my own contentment
172 - explore West Africa
173 - bake scones
174 - work in flextime so I can balance career and family
175 - visit Utah's Bryce Canyon (done)
176 - store snowballs in the freezer and pull them out for a summer party
177 - overcome difficulties in a relationship
178 - redecorate my home from top to bottom
179 - walk the fabled Bund in Shanghai
180 - spend a weekend in Atlantic City

Complete #73 - Cook pasta that's perfectly al dente

I love to cook. And, as is fitting my Italian heritage, pasta is one of my favorites. I don't eat it as often as I like due to it's negative impact on my waist line, but when I do, it's always cooked perfectly. There's nothing worse than soggy pasta. It will never be as good as my grandma's pasta but it's not too bad if I do say so myself.

To Do 161-170

161 - visit the restored buildings of Colonial Williamsburg (done)
162 - drink chilled Manzanilla accompanied by olives and almonds
163 - hit the road for a year in an RV
164 - live and work in Beijing for a year
165 - spend a day watching the sun move across the sky
166 - live in a villa on the Italian Riviera
167 - mud slide in the rain
168 - watch a bud open
169 - see summer arrive in Antarctica
170 - visit Louisiana's Oak Alley plantation to imagine antebellum life

To Do 151-160

151 - make love in a public place (done)
152 - kayak over the Grand Canyon's Lava Falls
153 - take a woodworking class
154 - lunch at New York's "21"
155 - split logs with a sledgehammer and wedge
156 - get elected team captain (done)
157 - run my own business (done)
158 - create a computer database for my family tree
159 - pay off my credit cards
160 - sit in the infield for the Indianapolis 500

Complete #66 - Overtip

This is something I do on a regular basis. I used to work as a waitress so I know what a horrible job it can be. I'm of the opinion that everyone should be required to wait tables for at least a month so they could see what it's really like. Tip your server if they do a good job!

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To Do 131-140

131 - start a patchwork quilt on the day of my child's birth - and give her the finished produce on the day she graduates from college
132 - stick to my convictions even in the face of hostile opposition
133 - take a boat ride through Indiana's Wyandotte Cave
134 - see where the red salmon spawn on Lake Clark in Alaska
135 - be asked for the recipe for something I've cooked (done)
136 - pamper myself with "the works" at a luxury spa
137 - take a limo to a Broadway opening
138 - trek through Karakoram
139 - travel the coast of Turkey
140 - take a kid to the circus

Complete #50 - Eat the world's best cheesecake at Junior's in Brooklyn

Junior's is definitely one of the best. I went there in August of 2005 during a weekend trip to New York with friends. It's not exactly convenient to get to the original since it's in Brooklyn, but it was worth it. If you don't want to haul yourself out there, there are several places in the city who sell their cheesecake, including a shop in Union Station.

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To Do 91-100

91 - receive two dozen roses from an admirer
92 - trek the jungle of Borneo
93 - start a watermelon garden
94 - attend the Calgary Stampede
95 - see with 20/20 vision
96 - float down the Amazon
97 - tour the great sites of ancient Greece
98 - lie on the ground in a grove of giant sequoias, the largest living things on earth, and look up
99 - walk across the Golden Gate Bridge
100 - ride an elephant in India

To Do 71-80

71 - sit through an opera by Wagner
72 - give money and muscle to Habitat for Humanity (done)
73 - cook pasta that's perfectly al dente (done)
74 - march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade
75 - visit a castle in Spain
76 - stay at the historc Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York
77 - live without television (done)
78 - mountain bike in the Rockies
79 - surf cast for bass at Montauk Point
80 - spend an elegant weekend at the Gritti Palace hotel in Venice

To Do 51-60

51 - drive I-80 from New York's George Washington Bridge to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco
52 - do the Sunday crossword puzzle in ink
53 - ride the Moscow to St. Petersburg wide-gauge railroad
54 - see the gigantic carved heads of Easter Island
55 - stand on the shore and roar back at the ocean as loud as I can
56 - study Buddhist and Hindy dharma
57 - be a mentor
58 - visit a new museum each month
59 - rent an entire restaurant for my 50th birthday party
60 - end a meal with Stilton, fresh pears, and vintage Port

To Do 31-40

31 - re-read all of the original Nancy Drew mysteries (in progress)
32 - drive through a dust storm in the desert (done)
33 - learn three jokes that get laughs every time
34 - run through Chicago's Buckingham Fountain
35 - celebrate Easter at St. Peter's in Rome
36 - bake croissants
37 - spend a summer in a chalet high in the Swiss Alps
38 - see a jazz funeral in New Orleans
39 - make charcoal rubbings of the stones in a ghost town graveyard
40 - canoe the lakes of the Adirondacks

To Do 21-30

21 - own a sensational sound system and have speakers in every room of the house
22 - wait out a storm in the bar of Windows on the World (unfortunately, due to the 9/11 attack this will never happen but I'm keeping it on the list anyway)
23 - hike Alaska's Brooks Range
24 - attend a party on the terrace of a New York City Penthouse
25 - give my lover a thousand Hershey's Kisses (done)
26 - become a wine expert
27 - live in an all electronic house I can control by computer
28 - scuba dive the wreck of a 16th century Spanish galleon
29 - take part in a geological survey
30 - keep exotic tropical fish

To Do 11-20

11 - walk down London's Abbey Road in homage to the Beatles
12 - learn sign language
13 - keep a stash of Girl Scout cookies all year round (I love the thin mints!)
14 - spend a week kayaking among the islands on the coast of Maine
15 - volunteer at the Special Olympics (done)
16 - fly-fish the Yellowstone River
17 - travel for three months with just one carry-on bag
18 - work for a company that has child care
19 - fall in love with the right person, at the right time for both of us
20 - trace the shape of a fossil from millions of years ago