I am a big ol' photogra-NERD

So I have had a photo blog for a long time. I have neglected it for way too long. So after a re-design to a more bright and simple layout I have resurrected Photogra-Nerd

I take A LOT of photos, way more than get posted here. I wanted a place where my photos could be displayed and not have to share space with stories about The Phi being a complete weird-o.

So head over and visit, or add to your blog reader. Let me know what you think!

Love, Uncle Tommy

While we were out with family a few weeks ago one of our last stops with to The Central Steak and Hoagie Shop in Simi Valley with my siblings and nieces and nephew. Why there? Well because the food is DELICIOUS and my "adopted brother" Tommy owns the joint.

The dreamlets waiting oh so patiently for their hot dogs and grilled cheese.

Why do I have SO many pictures of my sister doing this??



My brother Tommy doing what he does. He shows his love by making us amazing food!

Even the pickiest eater alive will stuff her face with food from Uncle Tommy's.

3 kids, 1 package of m&m's. Luckily they are all great at sharing.


Yes I ate the whole thing.

Weekly Wieners

All my winning photos from this week came from the My2Dads show on Friday night.

Enjoy!



My2Dads 3-27-09 Show from Elissa Lerma on Vimeo.

JT's Pub San Diego, Ca

For more weekly winners please visit Sarcastic Mom at sarcasticmom.com

oh yea and of course the silliness....

3-D Movie Time

3-D Movie Time, originally uploaded by Punk Rock Mom.

So the ads for the new Monsters vs Aliens movie started months ago. The Phi asked everyday if we could go see it. Since her concept of time is not great I made her one of those link chains. Everyday at breakfast we took off a link until on Friday we made it to the final link. Which meant that we had to take her to see Monsters vs Aliens. We headed to the early show and were surprised to learn that it was a 3-D flick. I expected cheesy 3-D but it was really good. Cute movie, and it made me fall just a little more in love with Seth Rogan and his stoner laugh. (He is slowly creeping his way up THEE list.) After tickets and snacks it was a $50 movie date, but well worth it. The Phi LOVED the movie. She sat through the whole thing, did not fall asleep and even kept her glasses on the entire time.

So here is The Phi's movie review...

"I think the Monsters vs Aliens movie is......SILLY"

Una Manda

Una Manda from Elissa Lerma on Vimeo.

It looks like it was amazing adventure.

Robbert Bobbert and the bubble Machine

So while twittering away one day I came across a Tweet about a contest over at Punnybop. They were giving away the Robbert Bobbert and the Bubble Machine cd along with a bubble machine! So after I figured out how to enter I left my witty comment and a few weeks later was told that I won!

Not too long later our package arrived in the mail and we immediately put on the CD. (They even threw in a bonus Soulville book with cd!) You know I am always looking for non-irritating kids music and this CD is a winner and will be played on frequent rotation on The Phi's ipod!


You can check out the tracks and buy your own copy over at Amazon. Listen to The Little Duck. It is totally my favorite. The Phi of course likes Fee Fi Fo, Fee Fi Fum.

A very cute CD with music that has a cool Beach Boys vibe to it. Fun enough for kids to like and cool enough for parents to enjoy.

Thanks Punnybop, because to a 3 year old nothing is more fun than running around in lots and lots of bubbles!

Baby Shower Gifts

It's crazy. My little cousins are all grown up and now some of them are having babies. Yes it makes me feel very very old. My cousin Christopher & Aerica are having thier first baby next month and my Aunt and Uncle threw them a very awesome baby shower last weekend. It was a packed house.

As always it was wonderful to see all my family together under one roof.

So what do you get a young and hip couple expecting their first baby? They had registered for all the usual baby items, but with a family has gigantic as mine they had those things covered. Since they had a name for the little man picked out I thought a photo gift. So a few weeks ago, armed with my camera in Palm Springs I found as many letters from signs as I could to make up the name Sylus. I found out the nursery colors and viola.....

The letters are from:
S= Willimas Sinoma
Y= my cars license plate
L= a little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant
U= Banana Republic
S= Sammys Firewood Pizza

So that and a pair of black and white baby Puma's I think we ended up with a great gift!

The Time Had Come...

The Phi is almost 4 years old and had never had her hair cut at a salon. Last summer I chopped about 4 inches off the bottom but never by a professional. So I needed to go into my salon for a haircut and after a lot of convincing The Phi agreed to get hers cut too.

She was cool until we got there. Then the whining started.

I don't want my hair cut at the hair shop Mmmmmmmooooooommmmmmmmm!

So Joey started looking at hair books with her to distract her while we waited. She found a little girl with bangs that she liked.

Once it was her turn she was a champ in the chair.

Classic The Phi face!

And we thought she could not get any cuter!

It's strange to see her look so different. She looks older because she has a little hair style, but younger because her little face looks rounder.

She keeps looking at herself in mirrors and this morning when I dropped her off at school she told her friend..

I went to the beauty store yesterday and got my hair cut!

Little E

I have been having some major bad camera karma lately. First over the weekend we went to a family party and I of course brought my camera packed with everything except the battery! I had left it in our bedroom at my parents house charging. We went to a local Radio Shack and Target with no luck for a replacement. Ugh! What a bummer because that night we went to dinner with my BFF Sam and Baby Eli who has gotten about 10,000 times cuter. Look at that little man!

And now it's Monday and I was working on getting my pictures uploaded when my 4gb memory stick decided not to work.

Weekly Wieners- sort of

Since we are still in Santa Barbara and trying to get in as much of the town as possible in the few hours we have left I only have a couple of pictures for you! The good news is two-fold. 1) the pictures of both of The Phi being silly and 2) you can see more Weekly Winners at Sarcastic Mom

Because what week would be complete without the silliness!

SB Weekend

PIC-0384.jpg, originally uploaded by Punk Rock Mom.

We are in not so sunny Santa Barbara this weekend. Enjoying family, good food and just good times all together. Hope your weekend is as fun filled as ours as been.

Illustrator

The Phi says a lot of funny stuff. Well stuff we think is funny. Crystal and her roommate Ashley really took to The Phi's line "Look at my eyes....I'm too busy". Crystal sent me this really cute comment about how it has become a saying at their place. Too funny.

So I started following her blog and we became facebook friends and decided to meet up since she was semi-local. We met at a coffee shop last Saturday morning. She brought along her fiance Ben and we had a nice long chit-chat about work, school and their upcoming wedding.

The Phi then decided to be a little show-off. She was looking at a Elmo book and looks up at me with her big brown doe eyes and says...

"Momma, what's an illustrator?"

I looked at her with a sly grin, what a little show-off.

I answered the question and she looked at Crystal and goes "An illustrator draws the pictures".

Oh man this kid is good.

you make an ass out of u and me

So The Phi had an dermatologist appointment yesterday. She is making her way through the medical field. We have been dealing with The Phi's skin issues since pretty much day one. Her pediatrician sent her to an allergist and then they send her to a dermatologist.

So after his office rescheduled the appointment 3 different times we finally got to the appointment day. Our appointment was at 4:30. We got there at 4 to get the new patient paperwork done (That took 1 minute) and we were not called in until 5.

Sitting in a waiting room with no kids books or toys with a 3 year old is fun. NOT

So we get in there and the doctor was able to offend me 3 times in one visit!

1. He assumed that I spoke Spanish. He started to talking to me about eczema and kept throwing in every Spanish word he knew. He didn't know many. This one happens a lot. I let out my heavy sigh and replied. It took him a while to finally get it. I can speak English. Don't let the brown skin fool you.

2. He assumed we were poor. Now I know that The Phi's hair isn't always perfectly combed but come on. He was telling me about the different kinds of eczema lotions out there and told me...
"if i was paying and you had a choice would you pick a Pinto or a Mercedes?" duh the Mercedes. Then he goes "but if you were buying it yourself you would get the Pinto because you couldn't afford a Mercedes" WHAT! excuse me. Do you have access to my bank accounts. Do you know how much money we make? Do you even know what we do for a living? Do you know what kind of car I drive? I gave him a look of complete disgust. So what I got from his little question was that there are good high end lotions out there but YOU can't afford them. So I was like "How much is the high end lotion?" He would not answer the question just kept saying it was really expensive. Finally I was like "Is it $10,000 a tube?". He said "Probably like $100 a tube" .

3. He assumed I had no education. He said ".... you know like when you are in college? Oh you probably don't know." By this point his assumptions were not shocking me and instead just told him that I indeed earn a few degrees in my day, from reputable universities even. Maybe next time I could wear my framed degree like a necklace.


Now this medical center we go to is not a free clinic. I did not come in waving my medi-cal card. I walked in, paid my co-pay for the insurance we pay a good chuck of money a month for. Okay maybe he does see a lot of Spanish speaking patients, and maybe a good majority are poor and never went to college, but that does not give him the right to make assumptions about anyone who walks into his exam rooms.

Does this happen to anyone else? Is it just me?

And just to make sure that I really loathed this guy he didn't even really look at The Phi. He glanced at her, said it was eczema and that I chose to have her, I chose to have a baby with a person who had a history of eczema as a child, (he seriously said those too things!) So it was my cross to bear and my problem to deal with because there is no cure for eczema. She will maybe grow out of it. I looked at this man and said....

"I know that. But look at her (The Phi is sitting there just scratching away at her arms and head) she is constantly scratching. She scratches until she bleeds and hurts. My child, who I chose to have, with the man that I love, is in pain and you are telling me that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it except wait for her to grow out of it? Do you know what it's like to watch your kid scratch at herself everyday all day long?"

He really didn't respond and instead wrote me a prescription for some more potent steroid cream.

Oh and he even gave me some samples of the "expensive" stuff.

FU Dude.

We get in the car and I strap The Phi in. She asks me, "Are you mad Momma?"

I looked at her, pulled at my collar and said....

"I get no respect"

Thanks

Dudes.

Duuuddeees

All you people who left comments, emails, IM's and facebook messages yesterday. Thank you so much. You all totally rock and really and truly made me feel better. You reached out through your keyboards and gave me the pat on the back, the big hug, and the light tap on the chin that I really needed.



Seriously.....thank you.

Happy St. Patricks Day

While I emotionally eat an entire corned beef and cabbage, I leave you with some St. Patrick's Day cheer straight from The Phi's lens.....

Just look at how serious my little photographer is....

Rejected

I need some cheering up today. A few weeks ago I was reading the local paper and rad an article about this new coffee shop/art gallery that us being built downtown. So I submitted this.....





Haven Submission from Elissa Lerma on Vimeo.

I waited and waited and got a response today....

"Unfortunately, we will not be able to display any of your photography for the opening because our space is so limited. But we will be rotating the art in and out frequently, so we'll keep you on our list for future reference. Thanks for your submission. Good luck in your endeavors, and you may hear from us again."

It was the first time I really put my stuff out there in the world. I am emotionally attached to each photo I make. I sent them out to be judged by a panel of people and they were rejected and sent back to me. And I realize that things are subjective and I am sure they had a certain thing they were looking for. But it still sucks and it still feels shitty.

Now its time to build a bridge, get over it, grab my camera and make more photos.

Breaking the Bank

It's Friday night. Work week is over (well for me anyways) so what do us wild and crazy kids do?

We watch Pineapple Express and The House Bunny and roll coins.

We are hard core like that. And by hard core I mean absolutely boring.

The Phi has this awesome ceramic piggy bank her great-grandparents brought her back from a trip to New Mexico. Joey always gives her all his change at the end of the day and anytime her great and grandparents give her money it goes into her piggy. Joey decided it was time to empty the pig.

After all the rolling she had a total of $229.50. Not bad for change. So I was one of those annoying customers I use to dread when I worked in banking. The one with the bag filled with rolled coins. I got a money order and sent off a check to The Phi's credit union.

And what I found really really strange was that she had exactly $9.00 in pennies. Like exactly.

Weekly Wieners

With Spring right around the corner. Like next week we were able to get out to a park for an afternoon and Market Night. The week flew by and now we are enjoying an overcast relaxing Sunday at home making Albondiga soup. Or attempting to anyways.

For more weekly winners please visit Sarcastic Mom (www.sarcasticmom.com)

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Look whats back in season!!! So Yummy.
Oro Blanco's are my favorite

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I had this big craving for medium rare steak. So after a google search we ended up at this place called Pinnacle Peak. The steak was good, the ribs were so so. We did find a new beer called Orange Wheat by Hanger 24. A local brewery we visited later in the week. So the ties, the do not allow ties in the restaurant. If you walk in with one, they cut it off.

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End of the ride.

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She is really and truly my sunshine

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I swear I don't do this on purpose but we often walk out of the house dresses alike.

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Signage by the duck pond

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The new must have toy at Farmers Market. A light up butterfly.
At least it was good for some crazy long exposure pics!

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....and always the silliness

Looking over my shoulder

I have never ever been able to dress myself. I might as well be color blind when it comes to matching clothes. I have always always dressed for comfort over style. Mostly because I do not know the first thing about style. I stick with the jeans with a t-shirt and flip-flops or converse.

My BFF has been raving about her love for Stacy London and the show "What Not to Wear" on her facebook. She peaked my interest so I recorded a few episodes and watched. Great show but I am so the person they would ambush and teach how to dress. So now I am looking over my shoulder waiting for Stacy and Clinton to grab me and take me to a room where they throw away everything from my closet into a giant trash can.

So I have watched some more episodes and today while browsing I kept their tips in mind when it came to sleeve length and belts and stuff. This is what I thought worked. Did I get it right, or am I so far off?

Of course being the indecisive and the type who cannot spend money on myself without a lot of pushing from someone else I did not buy it. Instead I carried it around for about 20 minutes and then decided that the $20 could be better spent on something else. Oh well.

Spicy Love

Does anyone know why a person's taste buds might change?

I have never ever been able to handle hot spicy foods or sauces. I mean Taco Mild sauce was hot for me. And being the proud Chicana that I am I got a lot of shit from people because I couldn't handle the hot stuff.

Then one day we were out eating and the nachos came with a little cup of sliced jalapenos. I stared at Joey while he ate some. (I stare at him a lot so he is use to it) I asked him

"Are those like really hot?"

I got the standard "Not really" answer from my oh so talkative husband of mine. Maybe it was all those times I have told The Phi "Try it, you might like it" but something made me want to try them. So I did and yes they were hot but they were also oh so good. Over 31 years I finally liked the hot stuff.

I didn't stop with the jalapeno in the cup. The next time we went out to Mexican food I piled on the green hot sauce on my chips. And I finally understand the love for the flaming hot cheetos.

A whole new world of flavor has been open up to me.

Now excuse me while I drown my dinner in El Pato sauce.

Continuing with the Rainbow Theme

The status of PR Dad's facial hair is a big deal.

One day it will be a normal kind of goatee. Then without real warning he will walk out of the bathroom completely clean shave.

And then sometimes a year will go by and all of a sudden he looks like a member of ZZ Top.

Sometimes it will be thick side burns and just a beard.

Once he had that porn 'stach.

And recently he was just growing it out, all mountain man like.

Today when i picked him up at lunch time I was greeted by this.

The infamous handlebar mustache.

The Phi told him it looked like a rainbow.

haha

All the colors of the rainbow....

So today I was going to write about the other night at dinner when Joey claims he busted me for looking some dude up and down. I was just looking at his t-shirt, but Joey totally claims I gave the guy the up and down glance. I would like to say it was just instinctual but I really was looking at his shirt. So instead I am writing about the topic of diversity. I was reading one of my favorite blogs today, Girls Gone Child and a post about diversity and parenthood.

So here is my story. I grew up in a tiny itty bitty area of California. It is basically hundreds and hundreds of citrus and avocado orchards with houses thrown in here and there. 95% of the population was the farm workers and their families. Which meant that the little school that I attended was almost completely filled with little Mexican kids with a sprinkling of a white kid here and there. (What's up Matthew!) I loved going to school there and it cultivated my love of school, education and all things academic, but it lacked greatly in diversity.

When you grow up with everyone the same, you walk around in a happy little cloud not knowing any different or any better.

Then we moved.

This new town was, well an actual town. A mostly upper-middle class town. We had neighbors and lived in a neighborhood. The move happened right when I was to start high school. So I started a high school in a brand new place that was so freakin HUGE compared to where I had gone. Here is where my lack of diversity kicked my ass. I met a girl named Ami (who would later become my Boo and the air that I breathe). Now Ami was short like me, brown skinned with dark hair and brown eyes, like me. So my sheltered ass thought she was Mexican. I really and truly did. I don't remember how or when but I learned that Ami was not Mexican but was Indian. Her parents were from India and she was brown, but she was not Mexican. My brain exploded.

Now I must admit that I did not think too much about diversity when we put The Phi in school but when I look around her classroom there are a lot of different kinds of beautiful faces looking back at me. The Phi herself is a little mixed breed. One of her favorite friends is Chinese and speaks Chinese and The Phi thinks this is the coolest thing ever. Her Uncle Tom is Cambodian and The Phi adores him (maybe because he gives her free grilled cheese sandwiches from his shop). I am very happy about this not because I want her to be alert to different nationalities or ethnicity's. In fact it is the opposite. I want it to not even be a thought in her head. I want people of all races to just be a part of her everyday life and not something to even give a second thought to.

Take a look, it's in a book...

The Phi can't read (yet). And for a long time she was not into listening to stories. Since she has been in school she has taken a much greater interest in books and stories. Which because despite what you may think I am a big ol' nerd. A bookworm if you will.

So we have moved past the little children picture books and now on our library visits we check out 3 or 4 picture book and a new chapter book.

In the past few months we have read:

The Wizard of Oz. The original version which was much stranger than the movie.

Then we read Matilda by Roald Dahl

Then we watched the Matilda movie. After the movie was over The Phi proclaimed that the book was better. (That's my girl!)

Last night we finished reading Ramona the Brave.

Today we are picking up The Mouse and the Motorcycle to start reading tonight.


I love this little thing we do. How we snuggle in my big bed and read one chapter. I am always amazed at how much The Phi retains and understands. And am blow away by her questions. I am also enjoying reliving my childhood through these book. I can remember exactly in that dark elementary school library where the Ronald Dahl books were kept.

Wanna Hear a Joke?

So now that The Phi has been introduced to jokes, she asks me all the time to tell her a joke. Unfortunately my inventory of jokes appropriate for a 3 year old is very very limited. So I am turning to you. My blog readers (aka my Mom and sisters). Leave me a comment with all the kid appropriate jokes you know. The Phi is getting very tired of the "why did the chicken cross the road" joke. Plus she doesn't even get that one.

The first week of March found our routine turned a bit upside down. My 2 day seminar in Palm Springs left PR Dad with picking up The Phi from school duties and it found us in Palm Springs for two evenings in a row. I really do love that town.

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An iconic sign from an iconic town

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One of the galleries on HWY 111

was showcasing items from the man who dressed Marilyn Monroe.

This picture was shot at night and through a window,

but the dress still came out breathtakingly beautiful!

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The effects of this economy have been felt even in sunny Palm Springs.

Lots of empty buildings.

Someone left a little message of love on an empty business window

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Everywhere you look in Palm Springs is beautiful.

Everyday items are pieces of art

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Friday afternoon found us once again at a bowling alley.

This picture is a reminder that life with The Phi is not all rainbows and butterflies.

She is a normal 3 year old with a normal 16 year old attitude.

But that shirt.....she inherited it from her dad.

From when he was a little boy on bowling leagues.

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STRIKE!

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The family that bowls together....stays together

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I wear PR Dad's tshirts to bed all the time. The Phi asked me why I wear Daddy's shirts all the time. I told her that when Daddy's works late and I miss him I can wear one of his old shirts and smell him and not miss him so much. Of course she wanted to wear one too. Then later that night when I went to check on her I found her like this. A neck pillow on her heard like giant hair. She is even funny in her sleep!

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...... and always the silliness

For more weekly winners please visit Sarcastic Mom