Being Self Sufficient

I have always prided myself on being quite confident and self sufficient, I feel I can do just about anything I put my mind to. I do not like depending on others.

At my last competition in May, I was reminded how important it is to not depend too heavily on someone else.

When competing in Figure, you are trying to look better than everyone you are standing next to. Obviously you need the physique, but you also need beautiful hair, nails, jewelry and make up, yes it is all rather silly when you think about it, but that's the drill.

I have used the same make up artist at every competition, she would come to my home or my hotel and she did a great job on my make up and hair. This time she let me down.

The evening before my competition I was hanging out in my hotel room with three other competitors, our trainer and her two children. I received a text message from my make up artist who said she had not been feeling well and would not be able to make it to do my make up, which was supposed to be in 13 hours.

In my book, you had better have your right hand hanging from one tiny tendon because it was just severed with a chain saw to send a text message like that to someone. I was shocked to say the least, and not quite sure what to do, I had no make up with me at all. As you can see from the shocking picture here, I might win the "who looks like crap competition" in the state I was in.

What a great look, body spray tanned to look 20 shades darker than my usual color and no make up. That should definitely win a trophy...

I managed to hire someone, and at the last minute had full stage make up and she did a great job, but I vowed never to let someone do that to me ever again.

I researched what I needed and the other day I went to MAC cosmetics and had the make up artist do full stage make up on me at 10:00 am, she showed me how to do it myself, piece of cake and what a sight! Looked great for the next competition, but walking around was a bit frightening.

I was off to get a graduation gift for "M" and walked into Sephora Cosmetics, they took one look at me and quickly steered me over to the guest make up artist and cleaned off my face and began a complimentary "make over". I was sitting still as she applied my mascara and heard a gasp in my right ear and a man saying"I want those!", I look out of the corner of my eye to find a man with his nose almost pressed to my deltoid. I flexed and he squealed quite loudly and grabbed my arm and said "Oh my god I want these arms!!" We all started laughing, it was quite entertaining.

Then, as usual talk turned to lifting weights, how you get rid of the saggy, floppy skin under your arms (I have never had it so I can't tell you by the way), how to get nice big round deltoids, and on and on. I walked out a couple hundred dollars poorer, much better looking and much happier.

I will never, ever hire that make up artist and if anyone asks about her, I will tell them she should not be considered, she is not dependable at all. She did teach me one thing though, never rely too heavily on one person.

Bring it on!