Penghentian Layanan Schoolnet 2011

Bulan Desember 2011 ini Kemdikbud menghentikan "sementara" bantuan internet bagi sekolah, termasuk juga kantor dan perguruan tinggi yang selama ini mendapat sambungan internet jardiknas. Jadi mulai bulan Januari 2012 (langganan internet) seyogyanya dibayar secara mandiri oleh sekolah penerima Schoolnet dan kita hanya berharap sekolah dapat tetap mendapatkan fasilitas tersebut di tahun mendatang dan semoha menambah sekolah lainnya mengingat semakin besarnya anggaran pendidikan pada APBN tahun 2012.
Berikut surat pemberitahuan penghentian Layanan Jardiknas Zona Sekolah (Schoolnet) tahun 2011

APBN 2012

APBN 2012 yang ditandai dengan disahkannya Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia nomor 22 Tahun 2011 pada tanggal 24 Nopember 2011 ini menjelaskan tentang struktur Anggaran Pendapatan dan Belanja Negara di Tahun 2012 ini. Diharapkan dengan mendownload APBN 2012 ini (UU No 22 Tahun 2011) kita dapat lebih memahami arah kebijakan Pemerintah saat ini. Semoga dengan publikasi APBN 2012 dari Kementerian Keuangan ini dapat lebih memberikan penjelasan kepada kita sebagai rakyat atas program Pemerintah di Tahun 2012 ini
Silahkan Download "APBN 2012" atau UU No 22 Tahun 2011 pada link dibawah ini



UU No 22 Tahun 2011 (Download)
APBN 2012 versi publikasi (Download)

PMK Tentang BOS 2012

Telah dipublikasikan Peraturan Menteri Keuangan (PMK) Nomor 201/PMK.07/2011 Tentang Pedoman Umum dan Alokasi Bantuan Operasional Sekolah (BOS) Tahun Anggaran 2012. Karena perlu kita ketahui, bahwa perihal bantuan Operasional sekolah tidak hanya diatur oleh Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan melalui (Permendikbud No 51 tahun 2011), tetapi juga melibatkan Menteri Keuangan (melaui PMK Nomor 201 Tahun 2011 ini) dan Menteri Dalam Negeri (Melalui Permendagri No 62 Tahun 2011). Untuk Pengelolaan BOS 2012 maka terbitlah Peraturan Menteri Keuangan (PMK) Nomor 201/PMK.07/2011 Tentang Pedoman Umum dan Alokasi Bantuan Operasional Sekolah Tahun Anggaran 2012.

PMK ini berisikan pedoman umum mekanisme penyaluran dana BOS dari Kas Umum Negara ke Kas Umum Daerah Provinsi yang dilampiri dengan kuota alokasi dana BOS per provinsi tahun anggaran 2012. Secara umum PMK ini berisikan tentang:
1. Biaya satuan BOS per siswa/tahun
2. Kuota dana BOS per provinsi
3. Jadual penyaluran dana dari KUN ke KUD provinsi
4. Mekanisme pencairan dana cadangan (buffer)
5. Mekanisme pelaporan keuangan
Secara detail dapat dilihat dalam PMK tersebut


Silahkan download Peraturan Menteri Keuangan (PMK) Nomor 201/PMK.07/2011 Tentang Pedoman Umum dan Alokasi Bantuan Operasional Sekolah Tahun Anggaran 2012 pada link ini sebagai pelengkap Juknis BOS yang dikeluarkan melalui Permendikbud No 51 Tahun 2011

Permendagri tentang BOS 2012

Telah dipublikasikan Peraturan menteri Dalam Negeri (Permendagri) Nomor No 62 Tahun 2011 Tentang Pedoman Pengelolaan Bantuan Operasional Sekolah (BOS) 2012. Karena perlu kita ketahui, bahwa perihal bantuan Operasional sekolah tidak hanya diatur oleh Menteri Pendidikan dan kebudayaan melalui Permendikbud, tetapi Juga melibatkan Menteri Dalam negeri dan menteri keuangan. Untuk Pengelolaan BOS 2012 maka terbitlah Permendagri Nomor 62 Tahun 2011 tentang Pedoman Pengelolaan BOS 2012.

Didalam peraturan ini mengatur mekanisme penyaluran dana dari Kas Umum Daerah Provinsi ke sekolah, yang antara lain memuat tentang:
1. Mekanisme penganggaran dana BOS dalam APBD
2. Pelaksanaan dan Penatausahaan
3. Pertanggung-jawaban
4. Mekanisme pemberian hibah dari pemda provinsi ke sekolah


Silahkan download Permendagri Nomor 62 Tahun 2011 tentang Pedoman Pengelolaan BOS 2012 pada link ini sebagai pelengkap Juknis BOS yang dikeluarkan melalui Permendikbud No 51 Tahun 2011

Juknis BOS 2012

Telah terbit Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia (Permendikbud) Nomor 51 tahun 2011 Tanggal 5 Desember 2011 Tentang "Juknis BOS Tahun 2012". Atau bisa dianggap sebagai Panduan BOS 2012. Buku Pedoman BOS 2012 ini sangat penting bagi pengelola BOS di sekolah.
Ada sedikit perubahan pada Juknis BOS 2012 ini,
Lebih jelasnya, silahkan download Juknis BOS 2012 di link ini (silahkan klik saja)


oh iya, hampir lupa, informasi penting juga, Bahwasannya ada perubahan besaran dana BOS 2012 ini

Besar biaya satuan BOS yang diterima oleh sekolah termasuk untuk BOS Buku,
dihitung berdasarkan jumlah siswa dengan ketentuan:

1. SD/SDLB : Rp 580.000,-/siswa/tahun
2. SMP/SMPLB/SMPT/SATAP : Rp 710.000,-/siswa/tahun

Sayangnya tidak dijeaskan pada Juknis BOS 2012 berapa alokasi untuk BOS buku, sehingga pelaksanaannya tergantung sekolah masing-masing untuk memenuhi Buku Teks Pelajaran.

HP WebOS

HP WebOS adalah sebuah sistem operasi mobile didasarkan pada kernel Linux , awalnya dikembangkan oleh Palm , yang kemudian diakuisisi oleh Hewlett-Packard . Nama resmi adalah uncapitalised WebOS, namun "WebOS" juga digunakan sebagai istilah lain.
WebOS diperkenalkan oleh Palm pada Januari 2009. Berbagai versi WebOS telah tampil di beberapa perangkat, termasuk Pre , Pixi , dan Veer telepon dan touchpad HP tablet.

WebOS memiliki antarmuka grafis dengan desain oleh Matias Duarte untuk digunakan pada perangkat dengan layar sentuh . WebOS menggunakan multi-touch gerakan untuk menavigasi di layar sentuh. Antarmuka menggunakan "kartu" untuk mengelola multitasking . Pengguna switch antara menjalankan aplikasi dengan gerakan menjentikkan dari kiri dan kanan pada layar. Aplikasi ditutup dengan menjentikkan "card" up-dan "off"-the screen.

WebOS menggunakan fitur, Synergy, untuk mengintegrasikan informasi dari berbagai sumber. Pengguna dapat sign in ke account pada Gmail , Yahoo! , Facebook , LinkedIn , dan Microsoft Outlook (melalui Exchange ActiveSync ) dan mengintegrasikan semua sumber ke dalam satu daftar. Kalender dari berbagai sumber dapat dilihat bersama-sama atau satu per satu waktu. Untuk pesan, Synergy menggabungkan semua percakapan dengan kontak masing-masing menjadi jendela obrolan-gaya tunggal. Sebagai contoh, pesan instan dan SMS pesan teks dilihat bersama-sama.

Pada tanggal 9 Desember 2011, HP mengumumkan rencananya untuk merilis kode sumber di bawah lisensi open source untuk WebOS di beberapa waktu dalam waktu dekat.

Mekanisme Penyaluran BOS 2012

Berdasarkan Buku Panduan BOS 2012 pada Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia Nomor 51 tahun 2011 Tanggal 5 Desember 2011 Tentang Petunjuk Teknis Penggunaan Dana Bantuan Operasional Sekolah (BOS) dan laporan keuangan BOS Tahun 2012, maka diatur tentang Mekanisme Penyaluran Dana BOS 2012 sebagai berikut;
Dana Bantuan Operasional Sekolah (BOS) mengalami perubahan mekanisme penyaluran dari transfer ke kabupaten/kota pada tahun 2011 menjadi transfer ke provinsi pada tahun 2012.
Proses penyaluran dana BOS dari tingkat pusat sampai dengan tingkat sekolah dilakukan 2 tahap, yaitu:

Tahap 1: Penyaluran dana dari Kas Umum Negara (KUN) ke Kas Umum Daerah (KUD) Provinsi. Mekanisme penyaluran dana dan pelaporannya diatur dalam Peraturan Menteri Keuangan (PMK).

Tahap 2: Penyaluran dana dari KUD provinsi ke rekening sekolah. Mekanisme Penyaluran dana dan pelaporannya akan diatur dalam Peraturan Menteri Dalam Negeri. Untuk kelancaran penyaluran dana BOS, ada beberapa tahapan/langkah persiapan yang harus dilakukan:

1. Bagi sekolah yang belum memiliki rekening, misalnya sekolah baru, maka sekolah harus segera membuka rekening bank atas nama sekolah (bukan atas nama pribadi) dan segera mengirim ke Tim Manajemen BOS Kabupaten/Kota;
2. Tim Manajemen BOS Kabupaten/Kota mengkompilasi nomor rekening seluruh sekolah yang telah digunakan pada tahun 2011 dan nomor rekening baru (jika ada), kemudian mengirimkannya kepada Tim Manajemen BOS Provinsi (Formulir BOS-02);
3. SKPD Pendidikan Provinsi dan SKPD Pendidikan Kabupaten/Kota menandatangani naskah hibah, yang prosedurnya akan diatur dalam Peraturan Menteri Dalam Negeri;
4. SKPD Pendidikan Provinsi menyerahkan data daftar sekolah penerima dana BOS dan alokasi dananya kepada BPKD untuk keperluan pencairan dana BOS dari BUD ke sekolah.

Dana BOS disalurkan dari KUN ke KUD secara triwulanan (tiga bulanan), yaitu:

• Triwulan Pertama (bulan Januari sampai dengan bulan Maret) dilakukan paling
  lambat 14 (empat belas) hari kerja pada awal bulan Januari 2012;
• Triwulan Kedua (bulan April sampai dengan bulan Juni) dilakukan paling lambat 7 (tujuh) hari kerja pada awal bulan April 2012;
• Triwulan Ketiga (bulan Juli sampai dengan bulan September) dilakukan paling lambat 7 (tujuh) hari kerja pada awal bulan Juli 2012;
• Triwulan Keempat (bulan Oktober sampai dengan bulan Desember) dilakukan paling lambat 14 (empat belas) hari kerja pada awal bulan Oktober 2012. Selanjutnya BUD harus menyalurkan dana BOS ke sekolah paling lambat 7 hari kerja setelah dana diterima di KUD.

Selanjutnya BUD harus menyalurkan dana BOS ke sekolah paling lambat 7 hari kerja setelah dana diterima di KUD.

Mekanisme Pengalokasian Dana BOS 2012

Berdasarkan Buku Panduan BOS 2012 pada Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia Nomor 51 tahun 2011 Tanggal 5 Desember 2011 Tentang Petunjuk Teknis Penggunaan Dana Bantuan Operasional Sekolah (BOS) dan laporan keuangan BOS Tahun 2012, maka diatur tentang Mekanisme Pengalokasian Dana BOS Tahun 2012 sebagai berikut;

Mekanisme Pengalokasian Dana BOS 2012

1. Sekolah mengisi data formulir pendataan untuk diserahkan ke Tim Manajemen BOS Kabupaten/Kota;
2. Tim Manajemen BOS Kabupaten/Kota melakukan pendataan siswa tiap sekolah berdasarkan data pada formulir pendataan;
   
3. Tim Manajemen BOS Kabupaten/Kota bersama-sama dengan Tim Manajemen BOS Provinsi dan Tim Manajemen BOS Pusat melakukan rekonsiliasi data jumlah siswa tiap sekolah;
   
4. Atas dasar data jumlah siswa tiap sekolah, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan membuat alokasi dana BOS tiap kabupaten/kota/provinsi, untuk selanjutnya dikirim ke Kementerian Keuangan;
   
5. Kementerian Keuangan menetapkan alokasi anggaran tiap provinsi melalui Peraturan Menteri Keuangan setelah Kementerian Keuangan menerima data mengenai jumlah sekolah dan jumlah siswa dari Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan;
   
6. Alokasi dana BOS tiap provinsi dalam satu tahun anggaran ditetapkan berdasarkan data jumlah siswa tahun pelajaran yang sedang berjalan ditambah dengan proyeksi pertambahan jumlah siswa tahun pelajaran baru;
   
7. Alokasi dana BOS tiap sekolah ditetapkan oleh Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan (dalam hal ini ditetapkan oleh Direktur Jenderal Pendidikan Dasar atas nama Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan);
   
8. Alokasi dana BOS tiap sekolah untuk periode Januari-Juni 2012 didasarkan jumlah siswa tahun pelajaran 2011-2012, sedangkan periode Juli-Desember 2012 didasarkan pada data tahun pelajaran 2012-2013.

Jetsetters

The Boeders are on the move!  Halloween will be spent with the gang in Phoenix checking out the Coleman's new digs, Thanksgiving week will be spent in New Orleans, Costa Maya Mexico, Belize City, Belize, Roatan Honduras and Cozumel, Mexico.  And, it looks like we might be starting the year off with a ski trip to Angel Fire, New Mexico with the possibility of a week in Ko Olina, Hawaii with the Colemans in February.  Next time someone asks me and Jeff when we plan on starting a family, I will advise them to read this post.  Not anytime soon!

Oh Yeah...

The yard is done!  Forgot to post the final pic.  We've enjoyed a few nights out by the fire pit and even had friends over for Sunday football and moved the big screen outside so we could enjoy the new patio.  So far we are loving our investment!

Blue Angels

Here is a cool vid of the Blue Angels flying right over our house.  We don't have to leave the house to enjoy the Miramar air show! 

A Change Here and a Change There

I consider the kitchen, the bedrooms and bathrooms pretty much done but the living room just bothers me.  I've tried rearranging furniture but I realized that I just didn't like the proportions of the items above the fireplace or the wine hutch on our 'Big Wall.'  I found an amazing bookshelf/wine rack at Crate & Barrel for a pretty reasonable price and found some mantel inspiration on Pinterest and spruced up the room a bit.  I still have some rearranging to do (we have so much damn wine!) but I'm liking what I see already.

Fireplace before.  The pic above just seemed to small for the space

Fireplace after.  Looks better, right?

Our old setup on the Big Wall (taken at Xmas obvi)



Replaced by this awesome piece!  Don't worry the other wine hutch is in the kitchen

So, we now have 4 separate wine hutches and a wine fridge and we have wine on bookshelves and at the bar area.  I need to start drinking more wine so I'll stop buying furniture to store it in!

Making Progress

The backyard is really coming along!  Here are some pics of the progress made this week, just a few more days and we're done!

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent prepping to pour

Concrete was poured Thursday

Concrete was stained the color Sandstone Friday

We have foliage!

Woo hoo!  Just a few mor days until completion!

Under Construction

We've spent the last 18 months updating and renovating the inside of our house and the outside has been all but ignored.  We have a beautiful covered patio in the back but we hardly sit out there because our view is dirt, weeds and a crumbling retaining wall. We love to entertain but when we do have people over the party rarely goes outside.  As I've mentioned before, the reason we bought a house rather than a condo was for the outdoor space and now that the inside of our house is done (well it will never really be done to this DIYer) we figure it was time to put some love into the backyard.  We met with several landscapers and settled on Angel from Promised Path Landscape who really had a vision of what our yard could be.  Construction started Wednesday of last week so here are some pictures progress so far.  We are most excited for the lounge area with the fire pit!  We should be ready for an evening of drinking Pinot Noir outside by the fire pit on October 15th (if there are no delays).  The front yard is still all sorts of ugly, but we plan on having Angel come back to do that sometime next year.

Before pic of the patio

Before pic of the yard

The Vision

After day 1

After day 1



End of day 3



Bye bye patio!

Wino Country

Last week we had the privilege of attending the wedding of our good friends Ryan and Rebecca.  Although the couple now lives in Minneapolis, the two opted to have the wedding in Ryan's hometown of Napa, CA.  I've known both Ryan and our mutual best friend Nate for 12 years now and have never been to visit their turf, even being the lover of wine that I am.  The wedding was on a Thursday evening so we decided to make a loooong weekend of it and flew up Wednesday morning and the wine tasting commenced immediately.  We ended up going to 18 different wineries in 4 days (our 5th and final day was wine free as we just couldn't bring ourselves to taste another drop) and had such a great time.  It was also a reunion of our entire San Diego crew so it was a lot of fun to all be together again.  I know these reunions will be few and far between now that we are all spread out.  Below are some pictures of our adventure, unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera to the main event (the nuptials).  You can view all the pictures of the trip by clicking here.

Our first stop on our first day

The Boeders in front of Luna

Darioush was built by a wealthy Persian.  It was over the top beautiful!

Tasting with the Colemans at Cuvaison.  Gorgeous views.

Family portrait at Raymond

Reserve tasting at Mondavi.  Do not drink the '96 Cab

Bubbly and cartwheels with Jenny at Domain Chandon

Rombauer Chardonnay is so good!  The view ain't bad either.

Pinterest

If only this existed when I was wedding planning!  Pinterest is the best thing ever.  It is a virtual pin board so whenever I'm blog surfing or internet window shopping if I find something I want to come back to later you just 'pin it' it to your selected board and it posts a pic of what you pinned and by clicking on the pic it takes you to the link for that item.  You can also see all the neat stuff other pinterest users are pinning and repin it to your board.  It's basically a bad ass one upper for your 'favorites' button.  You can take a look at everything I've pinned so far here and you can follow me by clicking on the Pinterest button on the far right of the screen.  Happy Pinning!

SDBeerbus.Com

My cousin Amanda and my brother Peter both work at Bridlewood Winery in Santa Ynez which is lucky for me.  For one, I'm surrounded by winos when I go home to visit and second, they have access to lots of wine.  I told them they should head down my way for a day of wine tasting in Temecula so they could compare our wines to the wines of the Santa Ynez Valley.  I finally got a text from Amanda saying "we're coming" but curiously enough they did not want to go wine tasting.  They wanted beer!  My brother has always been a 'Beer Snob' and I say this not with negativity but that is just the best way to describe his taste in beer.  When he came of age and started drinking beer, he started with Guinness and sneered at my cans of Tecate and Corona.  My bestie Nate has also always been a 'Beer Snob' and saved me from the clutches of Bud Light and MGD at many a college party.  Much like he did with wine, Nate introduced me to the different styles of beer and even learned me a few things about the history of the brews.  In college, he took me to Stone Brewery's 5 year anniversary celebration at their first location and I began to realize there is quite a microbrew culture here in beautiful San Diego!  Last year, as Nate's going away last hoorah, we bought tickets for the beer bus which on the weekend takes you to 3 breweries, serves you lunch and gives you  a souvenir pint glass.  The best part is that they pick you up at your house!  We had a ton of fun and I thought the beer bus would be perfect to introduce my guests to the San Diego Craft Beer scene.  We booked it again and the beer bus rolled up to my front door around 11 am and headed to our first stop, the now world famous Stone Brewery Bistro and Gardens in Escondido.   We were given 5 tasters over the course of an hour and also had time to roam the beautiful grounds (I love taking out of towners here) and the gift shop.  Stone makes some really hoppy beers and while I enjoy tasting them, their beer isn't really something I could drink on a regular basis.  We did get a keg of their Pale Ale a few weeks ago and it was pretty tasty, definitely one of their more mellow beers. 


Discussing the tastiness of our brew




Taking a picture break as we roam the gardens of Stone




Beer makes you think about things...

 

 After 5 tasters and a shared pint of their Imperial Russian Stout we hopped back onto the bus and headed to San Marcos Brewery for a few more tasters and some lunch.  While the beer was so-so the food was delish and after drinking beers with 9-12% alcohol content at Stone, there was definitely a little bit of a buzz starting so the food was much needed.  At this point the various groups on the bus began socializing and we started to get to know our fellow beer lovers.  We also started talking to our  bus driver Steve who was a plethora of SD Craft Beer knowledge. 



Me and my brother, captivated by something

 After filling our bellies we hopped back on the bus and by this time the bus was much louder than when we first got on.  The driver announce we were heading to our last stop and it was all the beer you can drink for the 50 minutes we would be there.Woo hoo!  Our final stop was at The Lost Abbey in San Marcos.   When Stone moved into their current, ginormous facility, The Lost Abbey moved in and took over.  They specialize in monastic and Belgian style brews but also have Port Brewing which is their more American style beers.  Needless to say, we had quite a selection to choose from!

Decisions, decisions



We had a lot of fun trying various beers from both Port and Lost Abbey.  The place was pretty crowded but we had no problem getting refill after refill.  The bus driver, Steve, gathered our group and a few other from the bus that had expressed an interest in the brewing process (and not just getting drunk) and gave us a behind the scenes tour of the facility.  He pointed out all the different machinery and told us various statistics so it was also educational and piqued my interest a little on the home brewing front.  Could be a fun (and tasty) hobby! 

See how happy The Lost Abbey makes us???



Amanda and I snuck into the Awards Room



When you are overserved, things like pretending to pee on a wall like a boy are funny

As our time at Lost Abbey came to an end our now rambunctious bus mates turned the beer bus into a party bus as we headed home.  It is amazing how in five hours and after a few beers people you never met and will never see again are your best friends...Jeff and I were the only San Diegans on the bus so we enjoyed telling our new friends where they had to visit and where they should go eat while in SD.  It was a fun day and I think our guests enjoyed the taste of the SD Beer scene. 

Our Beer Bus Family

Give Me a B!

I finally put up the monogram in the master.  Here are the before and after pics!

Before 1

Before 2

After 1

After 2

I like it!  What do you think?  I contemplated leaving off the flourishes on the sides but decided to put them up just to see what they looked like knowing I could just peel them off if I wasn't feeling it.  I like them and Jeff said 'it ties it all together.'  Love that hubby of mine!

A Little Birdie Told Me...

There is a giant blank space above the bed in the guest room begging for some art work.  I've been on the lookout for some wall art that would go with my black/white, Parisian, damask themed guest bedroom but never really found anything that would be a fit.  I thought about putting some floating shelves with knick-knacks above the bed but we are in earthquake country and our guest bed gets used quite a bit.  I can just imagine a piece of wall art or a shelf full of decorative candles crushing the skulls of my peacefully sleeping guests...I follow several DIY and decorating blogs and came across a post on House*Tweaking where she had this beautiful, large monogram above her TV.  I am currently obsessed with monograms and using letters for decor and decided I just had to have one of these monograms above the giant blank space above my bed in the Master Bedroom.  While searching the website mentioned on House*Tweaking for the perfect letter 'B' I came across this set of decals which finally gave me that 'this is it!' excitement.  These little cages and birdies would be perfect for the guest room.  The best part is that they are not permanent and easy to apply.  If I decide later I don't like them, they peel right off!  Also, they are earthquake proof.  This afternoon I put them up (we have guests coming in tonight and getting the guest room all purdy takes priority over making the master purdy).  It only took about 45 minutes and was super easy.  I'm really happy with the results.  Below are some before and after pics.  You might have to click on the picture to maximize it to really see the decals.  Now, off to get the master nice and monogrammed!


Before




After with Dali Decals

The kit came with lots of extra birdies so I'm contemplating where to put some more of them.  I'll keep you poste!

The Eat/Drink Project

You might remember my blog from back in March when I purchased some letters from Michaels.  Well I finally finished painting them today.  I just bought some black spray paint from good ol' Home Depot and put a few coats on.  Because of the shapes of the letters some creative techniques were employed to get the nooks and crannies without spray painting myself but they were very easy to do and I'm really pleased with how they turned out!  Here are some pics, I'm not 100% sold on whether I like the words on the window as they are in the pic but for now that is their new home.  We also finally got around to hanging some art in the kitchen and putting up the candle sconces I found on clearance at Target a year and a half ago.  Now we just need to paint the door that leads to the garage, paint the trim around the door and paint the crown molding above the cabinets.  I'm also purchasing one of those cool leather storage benches like this one to put under the Eat/Drink window.  It will be used as extra seating when we are entertaining and it will also be used to store all of our outdoor (plastic) plates, silverwear and wine glasses.  During the summer we eat on the patio most nights so all the summer utensil wear will come in handy!  A couple of cute throw pillows on the bench should complete the look (and hide the fact it is storage)!

Ignore the ugly speaker wire.  oops!



the vintage booze posters and candle sconces we recently hung



Does the right window look too bare now?

33



I titled this post 33 because that is how old I turned on April 29th.  I think.  Whenever someone asks me how old I am I actually have to do the math  because I can't remember if I am 31, 32...When Rosa was visiting me a few months ago she mentioned she was 31 and I believed her but later we realized that she was actually 32 and had a good laugh.  I guess after you turn 30 it's either not as important to keep track or all those brain cells you killed in college finally catch up with you.  I'm going to guess its a combo of both for me.  Anyways, I digress.  My birthday was on a Friday this year and I decided I wanted to take the day off.  Lucky me, Will and Kate decided to have their royal wedding on my birthday and since I was off, I decided I might as well get up at 3 am and watch it live.  So that is how my birthday started off.  Around 7 am I woke up off the couch (I fell asleep sometime after their 2nd kiss on the balcony) and crawled back into bed with just enough time for Jeff to kiss me goodbye before he headed off to work.  I slept in and awoke to a beautiful, sunny day and decided it was the perfect day for some shopping.  I was in desperate need of new work clothes in my new, smaller size so I headed to UTC for some major retail therapy.  I decided I need to do more small shopping trips rather than these once a year large ones.  Dropping $600 in one hour on work clothes made me feel super guilty, for about 20 minutes.  But dang, I've been looking good at work lately!  That evening I met up with Jenny Mae, Jamey and Andrea for happy hour followed by sushi and fro-yo.  Perfect ending to a perfect day.

Ponte Winery

 

The next day we hopped in the Coleman-mobile and headed to wine country.  We had a work party in the afternoon and it was just a quick trip to pick up their wine shipments but we enjoyed some incredible wine at the two wineries we stopped at.  Temecula is just beautiful and of course has a special place in my heart since I got engaged and married there.  After wine tasting we knew we needed some food in our bellies as we were heading to a work party in Escondido that was going to have a lot of wine, and we were already pretty toasted.  We stopped at EZ Take Out and let me tell you, it makes In-N-Out look like friggin' McDonalds.  It was heaven in my mouth.

EZ Takeout.  Mmmmm....

After a good long day of drinking we headed back to the Boeder Abode.  Immediately upon walking into the kitchen from the garage I noticed something was amiss.  In the past few weeks we had purchased a significant amount of wine and because we had no place to put it (all of our wine hutches were already full) I lined them up on the hutch.  There were two empty spots in the line up that had not been there when we left that morning.  The funny thing is, I had posted this picture of the wine lineup on facebook that morning:

I kept telling Jeff  "someone has been in our house and they took the Rombauer!"  I told Jeff I was going to hop on facebook to study the picture to see if I could figure out if anything else was missing.  Jeff kept laughing and telling me to look to the left.  I just kept yelling 'they took the Rombauer!'  In case you haven't picked up on it yet, I was overserved.  Finally after Jeff telling me to look to the left 5 times I did and sitting there with a big red bow on top was a new wine fridge with our Rombauer Chardonnay safely inside.

Jeff had bought me this fridge a few weeks earlier and had his sister come to the house while we were out to set it up and put in a few bottles of wine.  What an awesome surprise!  Needless to say I was very relieved that there were no wine thieves roaming Mira Mesa and very excited that I had a new home for our wine!  We now have 3 wine hutches and a wine fridge.  We've come a long way from when Jeff and I first started dating and he told me he didn't care for wine!  I also had a package from Goldie and John which included a gift certificate to my fave bar in South Bay LA, Gasser Lounge.  This place is awesome and the owner/bartender happens to love Goldie and John.  It's a Johnny Cash bar!  The gift certificate is actually a painted can of PBR.  I also had a package from my Uncle Mike that contained beautifully framed pictures of my grandparents from when they were young.  Birthdays have never really been a big deal for me and I usually could care less about celebrating but I do have some awesome friends and family who will never let a birthday of mine get by them without some fun times. 

My grandparents and a Polaroid of me as a babe.

Gift Cert for Gasser Lounge