Green for Saint Patrick's Day.

• Blue t-shirt: Maurices
• Green t-shirt: Maurices
• Trouser Jeans: Maurices (previously)
• Oxfords: Payless (previously)

This was my casual outfit for Saint Patrick's Day. I know it's nothing particularly exciting, but I had some errands to run around town, and I went with something a little more subtle. While it was actually a beautiful day out, it was still enough on the chilly side that I went for layered t-shirts. Tomorrow I have a pretty full day, and my wife and I are going out with friends in the evening, and I will hopefully have a post about that next week. And of course, my adorable wife took the pictures for today's post.

Trippy heels.

• Top: Maurices (previously)
• Cardigan: Maurices
• Trouser Jeans: Maurices
• Pumps: Nine West
• Bag: Target (previously)
• Necklace: Maurices (previously)
• Bracelets: Torrid (previously)
• Umbrella: Crabtree & Evelyn (previously)

Some friends of ours had some guests over this past weekend, and I took the opportunity to dress up. I was really excited about my new trouser jeans, and I really wanted to wear heels with them, so I paired them these heels which I have never really worn other than the initial try on, despite owning them for a while. The weather was pretty rainy and dreary, and I briefly thought about switching things out for my rainboots, but I knew we weren't going to get any good outside shots, and I figured we would mostly be making a few brief trips to and from the car.

After a fun evening with friends though, in the dark and rainy night, I mis-stepped on their stairs walking to the car and tripped. The biggest casualty besides my pride, was my pair of heels, as you can see above. The jeans are mostly okay, but I will probably be demoting them to much more casual purposes due to the blemish on the knee. (I realize that logic may be flawed since I have a matching blemish on my leg...)

I admit I'm a little bummed out about the shoes, but I got to spend a couple of days dressed how I wanted last week, and it helped my mood out a lot actually. And I will have more on that (and the outfits) in a future post. Plus, it turns out there may be some hope for the shoes after all! I talked to some friends and did some searching and I found a cobbler, and when I dropped the shoes off yesterday, they didn't seem to think it was too big of a deal to fix them. And honestly, while replacing shoes in my collection can be a little difficult due to sizing, I feel a lot more bold about going out these days and this blog has definitely played a role in that. And frankly, I'm happy I wore the shoes outside to an event with friends, even if they did get damaged in the process. There was a time when I would not have believed that I would ever own a pair of shoes like this, much less severely damage them from wearing them out and about.

So I look forward to seeing how the shoes come back from the cobbler (this is a new experience for me), and hopefully I will be figuring out a better balance of blogging with the rest of my life. I really miss everyone! And of course, my beautiful wife helped with my hair and makeup and took the pictures for today's post! (She's also still letting me borrow her computer!)

CSN Stores Gift Certificate Winner!

• Tote: Maurices
• Paper slips with everyone's name: Walmart
• Winning Entry: Pretty Penny Mae

My wife wanted to do the drawing, so I took the pictures today. The method of picking the winner was, of course, a random drawing!

Congratulations to Brooke of Pretty Penny Mae! You've won the $25 gift certificate to CSN stores! I will be sending you your gift card in an email momentarily! If you don't get the email or have trouble using the gift card, please let me know!

Thanks to everyone who participated in my first giveaway!

A Christmas party.

My outfit

• Dress: Maurices
• Belt: Maurices
• Cardigan: Torrid
• Red tights: JC Penney
• Pink floral fishnets: Torrid
• Pumps: Nine West via Zappos (buy)
• Necklace: Maurices
• Bracelets: Torrid (previously)
• Purse: Nine West (previously)
• Coat: Kohl's (previously)
• Scarf: Kohl's (previously)
• Gloves: Isotoner via JC Penney (previously)

My Wife's outfit

• Top: Maurices
• Skirt: Maurices
• Belt: Maurices
• Cardigan: Torrid
• Tights: JC Penney
• Pumps: Maurices

In the middle of last week, some friends invited us to an impromptu Christmas party last Saturday night. While the party itself was rather informal, and involved good food and board games, we all decided to take the opportunity to dress up for the party. I don't always get a lot of opportunities like this and so I had to get to work planning my outfit. After talking with my wife and my blog buddy Pamela, I narrowed down my options, and came up with this outfit. In addition to my own outfit, my wife asked me to come up with an outfit for her. I pulled together a couple of ideas and laid them out for her to pick from while I got dressed. Now, it wasn't entirely on purpose that we color coordinated, but purple was the only pair of colored tights my wife owns. I ended up loaning her a purse and the cardigan (which was too big, but worked well when it was belted).

We spent the morning getting ready, and since this was a big deal, my wife did a fabulous job on my hair and makeup. After that it was off to the park to take pictures. Please excuse the wrinkles since we had a bit of a drive to get to the park and this dress wrinkles easily. Unfortunately, our photo shoot was cut short because the day was pretty enough that people were out walking in the park. My wife got a little nervous at the onlookers, but my paranoia ended up being more about the dogs. At least one friendly dog seriously considered jumping on my dress with muddy paws. Thankfully the dog did not, and most of the pictures turned out great.

After the park, the plan was to go out to a restaurant, but after my wife's nervousness in the park, we decided it would be best to skip another public appearance. Instead we hit up the McDonald's drive thru. After that we showed up unfashionably early. Thankfully our friends hosting the party were very understanding about the situation.

After everyone got there it was picture time. Someone suggested doing pictures by gender of outfit, and after a brief discussion, someone came up with the brilliant idea of dividing up by whether we were wearing pants or skirts. Since one of the female guests was wearing pants, this kept things roughly even, and I thought it was an especially pleasant way of splitting up. While I would love to post some of those pictures, I didn't get permission from the other guests (although most of them read the blog), and this is already a picture heavy post. But everyone was dressed quite well for the occasion.

The party itself was a lot of fun. We got to hang out with friends that we don't get to see as frequently as we would like. It also meant a great deal to me that we got the opportunity to dress up well and go out for the evening. And while fashion was not the preeminent topic of the evening, the layered tights were a hit, and we discussed scheduling a shopping date with one of our friends sometime early next year.

And with that, I want to thank my amazing and adorable wife for doing my hair and makeup and taking the pictures and being patient with me in general, and I want to thank our wonderful friends for having us over for a wonderful evening and providing an opportunity to dress up.

Big black boots, long brown hair

• Dress: Maurices
• Belt: Torrid (previously)
• Tights: We Love Colors
• Boots: Payless (previously)

A few months ago, I placed an order from We Love Colors, and while I was really happy with the tights, I have yet to wear them with an outfit here. I know some other bloggers, like Nicole at Coco Maria make really great use of colorful tights, particularly yellow. And the other day, Ashley of Ashley Getting Dressed made some great use too, so I finally broke my own pair out for this outfit.

In other news we had some friends arrange a last minute informal holiday gathering for this weekend, which is a very pleasant surprise. I also want tor remind everyone that I love answering questions, so always feel free to ask away. You can read past question and answers here. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. And of course, as usual, my adorable wife took the pictures.

I'm not a lumberjack.

• Top: Maurices
• Denim Skirt: Maurices
• Socks: Target (previously)
• Boots: Payless

This outfit turned out far better than I imagined and it was extremely comfortable too! I really like plaids, but I have trouble finding plaid tops that work out, and that don't make me feel like I look like a lumberjack, but this one worked out pretty great I think (Not that its bad to look like a lumberjack, its just not the look I'm going for! ;) ). I was also a little nervous about the pattern mixing with the socks and the top, but I thought it worked out pretty great too. These boots are also a little different since they have zippers on the outside instead of the inside. Every time I pull them out of the box, I still find myself surprised by this and only remember because I'm trying to put them on backwards.

Oh, I'm still catching up on blogs, I haven't reached the "mark all as read" futility stage yet! :) And of course, my hair was done and today's pictures were taken by my beautiful wife.

Almost one year ago...

• Costume: Torrid
• Knee High Tights: Torrid
• Pumps: Torrid

Last year, we were invited to a Halloween party some friends were hosting, and I finally took the opportunity to explain to my friends my interest in crossdressing. These were not the very first friends I had told, but they were among the first. I decided I was going to take advantage of that Halloween party to go out and enjoy myself and properly dress up. Prior to that party I had never worn makeup, and never allowed any pictures to be taken of me while I was dressed up. And I hadn't really been outside properly either. It was a night of many firsts for me and my wife, and ultimately it was a lot of fun, and I realized how awesome some of my friends really are. But it almost didn't happen. And so today, I wanted to tell that story. With time, distance, and a happy ending it's lot easier to laugh at now.

I've heard it said that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. This post is about bad judgment.

We decided that for my costume, we would try to do the best possible job we could, and that included makeup. Now, I just want to add that at this point, I had never worn makeup before, and while I do wear it on occasion now, my wife usually does my makeup for me (although I am learning to do my own makeup), and it's not my favorite aspect of dressing up. But I have to say, I love what it can do for my pictures. Oh... right... I crop them all before posting, er, so everyone will just have to trust me on this one. ;) Anyway, so the single biggest "problem" I have with makeup is actually one that I suspect is less common: Facial hair. A 5 o'clock shadow is not usually the effect I'm going for, whether I'm dressed in a masculine or feminine manner, but it's definitely more frustrating for some of my feminine outfits. I have no ill will toward facial hair or body hair in general, on anyone, I just have a preference for less of it on me at times.

Enter bad judgment. Having previously experimented with waxing one leg (Yes, one leg. We ran out of strips, and I ended up shaving the other leg for two months to "even" things out...), I decided that waxing my face would be a brilliant idea.

Now, some part of my brain did have some concerns with this plan. The chief concern was that my facial hair wouldn't be long enough. So I started growing a beard just before Halloween to solve that problem. I also had visions of waxing gone awry and creating an ill placed, and very unfortunate bald spot on my head. And so the day before the party came, and we were in the bathroom, and my wife had applied the wax and placed the first strip on my face, and pulled... (Frankly, I think my wife enjoys this part too much...)

If our neighbors heard anything, they never said anything to us. I think the worst though, was that not a single hair came out. Not one. While the pain was unpleasant, Everything Was Still Okay. I had a Plan B.

Enter more bad judgment. It was now the next morning, I had already cut my leg shaving and I was starting to panic about the timing and how things were going. After a quick trip to the store, we bought a bottle of Nair. After reading and rereading the directions several times, I applied it to my face.

About 10 minutes later, I was washing it off. My face was burning. A lot. Did I mention the smell? Also the burning?

In addition to the "5 o'clock shadow", my face was now bright red and in intense pain. I was hiding in the bathroom, crying in the bathtub, telling my wife to call our friends and say we weren't coming. My wife called our friends, and after passing the phone around and talking about it all, our friends were pretty understanding about it all and had some suggestions and reassurances. So after the phone call and some time to calm down, we resumed getting ready.

I finally broke down and shaved my face with a razor. I have had razor burn before, but this was a whole other level of burn. This was the most unpleasant shave I have ever had. I didn't think shaving could go so wrong. But it was finally done, and I was relatively clean shaven and very red faced (but hey, as everyone told me that day, "that's what makeup is for..."). Also, did I mention the burning? Okay. I just wanted to make sure.

We ended up going to the party and having a great time, and I was even okay with several people taking pictures of me and my wife in our costumes. (Uh, now about tagging them on Facebook... that's a different matter...)

Since then, I have learned more about how to cover a 5 o'clock shadow, and hopefully my makeup this year will be the best it has ever been. (Again thanks to my wife's abilities, certainly not my own...) And there will be lots of pictures, and I will post about everything we do later this week. But for today, I thought everyone would enjoy seeing last year's costume, my first feminine costume, and even the first pictures of me wearing women's clothing ever, and have a good laugh at my story of bad judgment. This year, I plan on making ALL NEW mistakes. :)