Not So Pretty Pictures...

So my house is featured in Canadian House and Home, this month's April issue.

The house looks great. I mean, really. It looks better in the photos than it actually does in reality, which is I guess is what happens when, um, you know, someone cleans your house before photos are taken and puts fresh flowers in every room (which does not happen in my house every day...or any day.)

But enough about the house. I have bigger issues.

Like the friggen photo of me in the magazine. Maybe it's true that people always think photos of them suck, but I'm telling you this photo of me bites. It sucks!

They first sent me the shots a couple months ago. But the photo I opened on my e-mail was the size of a stamp. I was like, "OK, I can deal with that. It's so small nobody can even see it." It was too good to be true.

I knew it was bad before I even saw the magazine. I'm in Calgary, and might as well be in Turkey, because we get all our magazines way after the rest of the county...or at least Toronto, the centre of the world. (Or Canada.)

"A full size picture of you!" my mother screamed into the phone. Immediately my heart sank. I knew it couldn't be good. I mean, I don't own any makeup. I never wear makeup. I found some lip gloss I put on before the photo. But, hey, there was no make up artist hanging around my house the day of the photo shoot.

Then it got worse. Another friend from Toronto said he saw the photo in the magazine.

"Just tell me. Do I look fat?" I asked, because I'm a girl and that's what we ask.

"No, you don't look fat. You look..."

"What??????"

"I'm not even going to say it," my friend answered.

Ok, I knew it was really bad. My friend couldn't even bring himself to lie to me and throw out even a, "Well, it's not your best picture. But it's not that bad."

At that point, I still hadn't seen the magazine.

I called my friend the next day, obsessed about this photo of me that seemingly all of Toronto was calling me about (Well, they were calling about the house) that I hadn't seen yet.

"OK, just tell me. Is it my nose? Does my nose look big?" I asked him.

"Well, in all the time I've known you," he admitted, "I never once thought you had a big nose. But it's the angle of the photo," he said. "Yes, you're nose looks big."

#(%&(#%(#!!!!!!

"Oh man!" I moaned. "Well, next month I'll be bird cage lining anyway."

Many of you ninepounddictator readers know I have issues with my nose. I mean, if I could be guaranteed to look like Ashlee SImpson post-her-nose-job, then I would do it. I would get a nose job.

Ok, I so would NOT get a nose job. Plastic surgery scares the crap out of me.

But still. I finally got my hands on a copy of the magazine. What can I say? It's a photo only a mother could be proud of.

There's me (and my honker) my daughter (Who looks super cute) and my dog (Who, actually, is the most photogenic of all of us.)

And my nose....my nose....my nose....

Then, yesterday, I got an e-mail from a woman who I went to hebrew school with about 20 years ago and haven't seen since.

"I saw your photo in Canadian House and Home. You look exactly the same!" she wrote.

Seriously. I know.

My big nose and I are going for a walk now. And I'm going to walk at a way better angle....It's the ANGLE, I swear!!!