Cherry-Walnut Gelatin Mold Recipe

It is the season for fresh sweet cherries and this year is especially sweet because of the cool long spring. The Cherry-Walnut Gelatin Mold is delicious. You can also reference the 2010 Favorites Recipes for our very popular Grilled Bratwurst with Bing Cherry Sauce, Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes and Arugula Salad.

Cherry-Walnut Gelatin Mold Recipe

2010 Favorite Recipes

Rocke in the News

My husband, Rocke Koreis took a new position at The Boeing Company this year as the Airplane Systems Chief Engineer for Component Management Optimization (CMO) Information Services, Commercial Aviation Services. It is a new product launch using RFID tags to increase efficiency in airplane maintenance. Something Rocke has a patent and several other patents pending with Boeing.

Click here for an article from Aviation Week about Rocke and the New Product

New IRS Mileage Rates

The IRS has increased the vehicle mileage rate from 51 cents per mile for the period of Jan 1- June 30, 2011 to 55.5 cents per mile for the period of July 1 –Dec 31, 2011. Remember that to take a vehicle deduction, you are required to have a written mileage log. You can reference IRS notice IR-2011-69 for more details. You also may be able to write off mileage traveled to visit your financial advisor (see article on deductible investment expenses).

Estate Tax Exemption Is Portable (For Now)

Recent legislation introduced a new, but perhaps temporary, estate planning concept - - exemption “portability”. Professional Alliance member, Pat McGowan cautions clients from assuming all will be ok relying on portability as the perfect estate plan. It is currently only good for two years, does not take into consideration Washington estate tax and you have the potential of losing the exemption of the spouse remarries.

Click here for article on Portability Estate Tax Exemption

Deductible Investment Expenses

One of the benefits of using a fee based advisor is the ability to write off some of my advisory fees. Professional Alliance member Victoria Trigg graciously wrote an information summary on when advisory fees are deductible and when they are not. You can reference IRS Publication 550: Investment Income and Expenses for more details on this issue.

Click here for the Summary

Trends & Innovations

We get so overloaded with negative news every day I thought it would be good to add a good news Tid Bits each month. There are so many exciting developments happen right now that you never hear about.

Patch renews damaged heart

A new type of patch promises to reinvigorate damaged hearts. Brown University researchers have created a nanopatch with carbon nanofibers and a polymer. The carbon nanofibers work well because they’re good conductors, performing electrical connections that a heart relies on to keep a steady beat. In lab tests, the patch was shown to restore areas that had been damaged by a heart attack. The idea is to put something where the dead tissue is to help regenerate it, eventually restoring the heart to health, the scientists said.