Viva Las Vegas

Part of my work to rebuild my confidence included competing in pinup contests. The first one I chose was the Viva Las Vegas Pinup Contest. Maybe I should have started smaller, but there is not a lot of Kustom Kulture, Rockabilly, Pinup, or Retro events happening in my neck of the woods, so I went big. I didn't even know about it until the end of November, and didn't enter until December. The judges just picked 5 girls (plus one from the contestants' votes) to go, and 50 more to go to an online voting round.

Let me answer your burning question right away: I didn't make it.

But I am okay with that. It was my first time, and I hadn't really done anything to deserve a spot. I have never had professional photos taken, gotten my hair done, gotten my makeup done... I just like to dress up every day and my Tommy Lee likes to take pictures of me wearing the pretty clothes. I do my own hair (no clue what I am doing). I do my own makeup (still no clue what I am doing).

So, before I enter another one of these contests, I think that I will really learn how to do my hair and makeup and I will get some professional photos taken. I have no idea if that will be in time for next year's Viva or the year after or what. Like I have mentioned before, we are saving money like mad to get a well drilled here at home so that we don't have to go a relative's for a shower, haul in water for kitchen and bathroom use, or drive the laundry to town once per week to have clean clothes.

***SIDE NOTE***
While I will freely admit that living without running water is hard; it's not impossible. I have lived without running water more of my life than with it. I know that must be seem strange to a lot of people, but I grew up in a rural area where wells with year-round water cost in the neighborhood of $20,000 to $30,000 USD. Literally, the water table is 300 feet or more below ground. My parents had a shallow well, but we ran out of water in late summer or early fall every year, so there were at least three (but usually more like 5 to 6) months out of the year where we hauled in water, usually in the winter. There weren't neighbors close back in those days. My mom worked her butt off, heating water for everything; my dad worked at a saw mill and brought water in 55-gallon barrels from town for bathroom and kitchen use. We had jugs all over the place. It took my parents almost 25 years of my dad working at a sawmill and saving every extra penny in order to afford it. In 1998, it cost them over $15,000. It's more now, like $26 per foot.

And after I moved out, and had the luxury of running water, I was still super frugal with it. Now that I am back to living the rural life, I still am Super Conservationist when it comes to water, which is probably why I adapted to this situation so easily. What irritates me about it is the clutter from the jugs that have to be stored in the house, especially in the winter. We have jugs in the kitchen for cooking and dishes and hand washing. We have jugs stored in the bathtub for the toilet flushing. We leave the house for showers. We go to the laundry-o-mat for clothes cleaning once per week. It's tough, but not impossible. It's inconvenient, more than anything.

So, yeah. While I love pinup stuff and being a pinup, I also have to be a responsible adult, and if that means that I don't get to have professional photos taken because I need to save that money for water, well, so be it. I am totally positive that a pro photographer would make me and the clothes and hair and makeup look amazing, but, in the end, I think a lot of people enjoy the pics that Tommy Lee takes of me. Maybe they're not professional, but they're taken by someone who cares.

And I'll get to it eventually. In the meantime, hop over to the Viva Las Vegas Pinup Contest page and vote for one of the girls. They're all lovely ladies with a ton of heart who deserve the opportunity to move on in the contest.