Camera shy?

Today I was offered a regular column in a local parenting magazine. Nothing big, nothing paid, but something that enables me to claim "I am published!" It's been a bit of a rough week around my house, and this really made my day. The editor asked me to send her a picture in case they have room. Hey, it's a small magazine, I'm excited to have 150 of MY OWN WORDS published, a picture is just icing on the cake. It took me, and I am not exaggerating here, longer to find a picture worthy of publication than it did for me to write the story. There are no pictures of me! You'll all say it's because *I* am the one always holding the camera. Sometimes, yes. But mostly, no! I'm too scatter brained half the time to remember to take pictures in the first place. I tote the stupid camera to everything, I just never take it out of the case. I envision myself being run over by a heard of elephants in Africa, because I'm going there, you know, and after my funeral my children are lost because there are no pictures of me. "What did our mother look like? Why are there no pictures? Was she hideous?" Okay, okay, that is absolutely absurd, the Africa part and everything. But really, there are few good pictures of me. There are family pictures of all of us that require a single picture of me to be cropped away, but none of me by myself. The few there are of me by myself are, in fact, hideous. There are either dark circles under my eyes, bad hair, glasses that have slipped down the bridge of my nose or I'm making a face that indicates I may,at any moment, hurl the contents of my stomach onto the photographer. I have decided from now on that at every family function there will be 5 minutes set aside for just photos. Photos of everyone present. Good photos too, not photos of people with their mouths in mid-chew or formed into strange shapes because they are in the middle of speaking. No. These will be look-into-the-camera-and-say-cheese! pictures. That is my New Year's resolution. If you don't like it, then don't come over.