Velma.

• Dress: Macy's (buy)
• Boots: Payless
• Pantyhose: Just My Size
• Socks: Target (previously)

This was an outfit from last week that I meant to blog. The dress was bought with Christmas money, but I've had my eyes on it for a while. So when I was doing some after Christmas shopping, and noticed it on clearance... I figured that meant it was time to make a purchase. When I picked it out, the burnt orange color was one of the draws, but it was only after I had the outfit on with some nerd-chic glasses (not pictured of course...) that I realized that with a few minor changes, I was dressed similar to a certain Scooby Doo character.

Now I have to take a second to thank some really awesome bloggers. First, AppGal of Musings on the Mountain listed me, along with some other wonderful bloggers, in her post on blogs you should read! So thanks the for wonderful shout out! And Lisa from respect the shoes reminded her readers about my giveaway in her Lazy on a Sunday Afternoon. And Meg of Questionable Taste kindly mentioned me in her post What I've Learned. Thank you so much for these mentions! And of course, I hope I haven't missed anyone!

And last but not least, Ariana of fatale fashion gave me a stylish blogger award! Thanks so much Ariana! Now as part of the award I'm supposed to list seven things about me.

1. I love ballroom and latin dancing. Its a passion actually, but where we're located, we don't have a lot of opportunities to go out and dance.
2. I love horrible movies. The worse the better actually. My latest favorite is Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Of course, some movies really are just bad, but there are certain types of Grade D cheese fests that I adore.
3. I secretly enjoy Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, La Roux, and other pop singers. And I don't usually want to admit it to my friends. (And I'll even admit that I owned a New Kids on the Block tape when I was growing up.) Now, I'm not one to obsess, so I'm not a super fan by any means, and I enjoy a pretty wide range of music.
4. I love traveling. I have seen (and waded in) both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean within the same two week period once.
5. I was involved in band all the way through college. I even stuck with marching band for part of my college career. Ironically (or perhaps not...) I don't usually enjoy watching football at all.
6. In addition to my personal addiction to shoes, my wife and I both have a serious addiction to collecting books. And books, like shoes, present serious storage issues when you have "too many". We have "too many".
7. I spend a lot of time procrastinating. Its actually gotten worse as I've gotten older. I try to compensate for this by reading nearly anything I can find on better ways to be organized. Of course, reading up on better ways to be organized is a great way to procrastinate. :)

I know I'm supposed to pass the award on to 8 other bloggers, but I have so many wonderful blog friends and I wouldn't feel right leaving someone out. In addition I truly believe all of my readers are stylish, so if you need a reminder of how stylish you already are, consider yourself awarded the Stylish Blogger Award!

Its too cold for this outfit.

• Cami: Cato (previously)
• Cardigan: Old Navy (previously)
• Skirt: Maurices (previously)
• Shoes: Gabriella Rocha via Zappos (buy)
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart

A while back, I saw Ashley of Ashley Getting Dressed post a really cute outfit. It didn't take me long to realize that one of my favorite skirts was really similar to hers, and that I could recreate a very similar outfit for myself. As an added bonus, I realized it would make a great outfit for the blog debut of these camel colored T-strap pumps. And those white blurs in the last two pictures are not a camera malfunction, they're snow! I hope everyone had a great weekend, and of course today's pictures were taken by my beautiful wife.

Orange and purple.

• Top: Cato
• Cami: Cato
• Vest: Maurices (buy it)
• Skirt: Isaac Mizrahi for Target
• Purple Tights: JC Penney (previously)
• Boots: Target
• Bracelet: Torrid (previously)

I frequently associate orange and purple with Halloween, but when I put this outfit together, I was thinking they really work great for fall in general. I was also trying to break my neutral heavy rut. Of course, its cold like winter here, so maybe its not really time for a "fall" outfit anymore, and this was all just wishful thinking on my part. I know the short sleeves were wishful thinking, but I was indoors the whole time I wore this outfit, with no intent to go outside.

I have another question to answer today. This one is from the fabulous Pamela of Call Me Ishmael: Where do you most want to go dressed as a woman? For what occasion? I think you mentioned something about a wedding or ball before. Anything else?

What I really want is to get dressed in the morning without having to consider the gender of my clothes, and just go about my day normally. As it stands, I'm pretty sure that's not realistic most days, but I do feel like I'm close to a place where I can go out and about some of the time. It just takes some advance planning and preparation. However, there are some situations where I frequently find myself wishing I could wear an outfit I would post here. And since that's what Pamela asked, here is a list of those places in no particular order.

• I mentioned this one previously. I would like to wear a nice formal dress to a formal event. Maybe its because I remember all the formals, proms, and dances I went to while I was in school where I was often jealous of all the pretty dresses. One day, I would really like to get dressed to the nines in formal wear and go to really swank event or dance.
• This one is related to the previous one, but since I joked about it in the other post, I thought I would expand on it. I have always enjoyed weddings, and while I had a close male friend ask me to be a groomsman once, I have sometimes thought it would be really special if one of my close female friends ever asked me to be a bridesmaid. (And then my next thought is usually to ask myself what would a male bridesmaid be called?). Of course, this would probably be a horrible idea, and weddings should be all about the couple, but I like the idea of being there for my friends on their special day. Also, I have a long and highly qualified resume documenting my skills at extreme car decoration during the reception. Okay, maybe that last one isn't helping my argument! :) (Hehe, it also doesn't help that the idea of male bridesmaids shows up in pop culture occasionally, like here and here!)
• I also like the idea of going dressed up to informal parties and other social events with friends. This is actually something that I am getting the opportunity to do now, since I have a circle of friends who are accepting of how I like to dress. Its not like there are opportunities on an extremely regular basis, and most of our friends live one city over from us, but next year is looking up on this count.
• I'm sure to no one's great surprise, shopping is high on the list too. Especially the idea of making a real day of it with some friends, and going to a city with lots of great shopping options (and preferably reasonably far away from home for anonymity reasons...). Of course, this one is as much limited by budget as other concerns, so I guess I need to start saving up for it. :)
• A "(Mostly) Girls Night Out". The idea of getting dressed up and going out with small group of close friends to a nice restaurant, followed by a movie, play, or some other fun and/or cultural event or even a nice club. I'm not sure if this counts as irony, but I wouldn't actually want to exclude any gender from this sort of event. Earlier this year, some friends had a tea party and hosted a Mary Kay consultant during the tea. Afterward we all went to a restaurant and then to play pool. The evening was actually completely mixed gender. Okay, well, I was the only guy who elected to go to the Mary Kay part (the other guys watched a movie in a different part of the house), and I ended up changing before we went out for the rest of the evening. So I'm including this one because doing more things like this appeals to me, especially the part where I don't change clothes halfway through.
• I really enjoy office styles a lot, and so the opportunity to conduct business dressed up really appeals to me as well.
• When I was in college, a friend of mine showed up to class one day in a 3 piece suit. We asked him what the occasion was, to which he deftly responded, "Laundry Day." And so the last "place" it something I have probably mentioned before as well. Some days, I just want to get up and dress up for what many would say is "no reason at all". I do think there is a reason though. I want to dress up for myself, and when someone asks why, I don't want to feel embarrassed that I just wanted to look fabulous, and hide behind being out of "regular" clothes. (In all fairness to my friend, he was, in fact, completely out of other clean clothes. I guess doing your own laundry is a life skill too frequently learned in college.)

And of course more questions are always welcome, so definitely feel free to post more. I will always try my best to answer them. This week has been mildly crazy as well, so I must apologize for the lack of posts and being behind in general. And of course today's pictures were taken by my lovely wife.

Timing is everything.

• Sweater: Maurices
• Cami: Maurices
• Skirt: Maurices (previously)
• Boots: Indigo by Clarks via Amazon
• Pantyhose: Just My Size via Walmart
• Coat: Kohl's
• Scarf: Kohl's (came with the coat)

This is one of my favorite outfits. Its one of the first outfits we bought at Maurices after I got "okay" with my interest in fashion. I saw it on one of the store displays and bought it "as is" off the mannequin. The boots weren't with it, of course, I bought those later. They are actually one of my favorite pairs of boots too. I really like their dark brown color, and while they aren't leather, I found them on Amazon and watched them until they went on clearance for $25 (they were originally around $125). I really love how they look and they are extremely comfortable to boot! I have been waiting for the "right" occasion to wear this outfit since I started the blog. Unfortunately, I have had several opportunities lately to go out dressed and socialize, but various things interrupted those opportunities at the last minute. So this past weekend, we finally got dressed up to go out, even though we had no real plan.

Now, while we had no plan for the day, it still worked out that almost nothing went according to our un-plan. How that works, I'm not sure, but that's what happened. We started off by getting a late start. We had tried contacting a friend or two, but it was a holiday weekend, so everyone was either busy or didn't get the message until too late. And why I thought one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year would be a great time to discreetly sneak out... I'm still not really sure what I was thinking actually. The evolving un-plan for the day ended up being: take some outdoor pictures and go to an uncrowded restaurant with a couple of friends and eat a quiet meal while dressed up. Or something like that.

In addition to all the shopping traffic, on the way to the nearby larger city we discovered a sporting event was letting out. We discovered this because interstate traffic slowed to less than ten miles an hour for... most of the evening actually. In addition, due to our late start, we were rapidly running out of daylight (made worse by the traffic delays). At least the outdoor shots that turned out much better than I feared they would.

The shopping traffic plus the event traffic also meant every restaurant was packed, even the typically quiet restaurants we had picked out had lines. Ultimately I decided to put on the change of clothes I brought and wash off my makeup and so we wouldn't have to worry about the crowds.

On the whole, I'm not that disappointed. I think I would have gone in to a restaurant if pretty much any of the stuff that went awry had gone a little different, and the pictures did turn out nicely.

And of course, somehow, I had this idea I would get caught up over the holiday weekend here, and it turns out, I'm more behind than ever. I have not given up yet, and we'll see what this week brings. I hope this week brings me time take some outfit pictures, do some more posts, and read everyone's awesome blogs I have been missing. And of course I must add that my patient and wonderful wife took today's pictures (and she did my hair and makeup too).

Play it again, again.

• Top: Maurices (previously)
• Blazer: Maurices (previously)
• Pants: Torrid (previously)
• Pumps: Payless (previously)
• Bracelet: Torrid (previously)

So this marks the end of this weeks remix challenge, and this outfit is also a complete remix of previously worn pieces. Its certainly been fun to force myself to remix pieces. However, I do want to continue to go through everything in my closet by posting it on the blog, and just cut back on my shopping in general. This blog has helped me feel less of a need to shop, and I really enjoy sharing my love of fashion with everyone.

On yesterday's post, Lesa of Always Summer left a question: Hey, I have a question from my daughter (she's 15 and really just wondering (please don't get offended) She said" Mom, his clothes are so cool, does his wife get to wear them too?" First, I love answering questions, and I don't get offended easily at all. Questions are always welcome, and I will do my best to answer them. I'm really flattered that your daughter thinks my clothes are cool. My wife and I are very differently sized, so unfortunately, my clothes don't fit her, and hers don't fit me. It would definitely help on closet space if we could though, and it would make it a lot easier for me to rationalize buying more shoes if we wore the same shoe size. We do share on some accessories though, mostly things like purses that aren't really sized. I have some more I could say on this topic so I may write a longer post on this topic in the future. Although with all the well dressed style bloggers out there, I think it would be interesting to hear what others have to say. Does anyone have someone they share clothes and shoes with? What are your feelings on sharing clothes and shoes?

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I am really looking forward to seeing what other style bloggers do for Halloween next week, and I'm pretty excited about our own plans here. And of course today's pictures were taken by my fabulous wife.

Bold black and brown.

• Top: Maurices
• Cardigan: Old Navy
• Belt: Torrid (previously)
• Pants: Maurices (previously)
• Pumps: Isaac Mizrahi for Target

Since I already had my outfits picked out for the week, I am still remixing, and I will be remixing the first week of November again, since that is when Meli22 has rescheduled her challenge. Of course, this isn't a remix yet, since several of these pieces are new to the blog, but they will be by the end of the week! I really enjoy pairing brown and black, but I'm not always convinced they work, this outfit might be on the other side of the line, and I also feel like I might have gone overboard with the belt in this one, but overall, I'm pretty happy with the outfit. I also really like these pumps, and other than my own attempt to go through most of my shoe collection, I would wear them more often. They are from Isaac Mizrahi's collaboration with Target a couple of years ago. I have several other pairs from this collection too, and I love them all, and the best part is that they usually had my size in this line too, which Target's other brands usually don't.

In other news, it looks like almost everything is taken care of for Halloween. Maybe all the anticipation and build up on my part will just make things anticlimactic once it actually gets here. We also recently moved so we have no idea if we will get any trick-or-treaters here either. I have several plans made for next week, now I just hope they all work out. And of course, today's pictures were taken by my adorable wife!

BBCA 4: Warm colors versus cold day.

• Top: Maurices (previously)
• Cardigan: Old Navy (here)
• Pants: Maurices
• Shoes: Payless (previously)

This outfit is part of Melissa's Blogging for Breast Cancer aWEARness challenge. This is also the first time I have remixed a pair of shoes on this blog, and I'm embarrassed to admit that it won't be a regular occurrence anytime soon since one of my goals for this blog is to go through many of the items in my closet rather than repeating the same pieces and outfits over and over again, and especially to go through most of my shoes. Remixing is definitely a lot of fun though, and I really do need to rethink some of the things I have, and having this blog has been extremely helpful for that too. Everyone in Melissa's challenge has been putting together some really awesome outfits, so if you haven't been to Melissa's blog and checked out how the other participants are doing, you totally should. As for me, I realized how little pink I have in my closet, and this cardigan on yesterday's outfit is brand new. A cardigan in every color is always a handy thing though, right? Right? I hope everyone is having an excellent week! (And less busy than mine...)

As always, I love to write posts to answer questions from the comments! So ask away and I will try to respond! And of course, my amazing and awesome wife took the pictures today.

Rustic Office.

• Yellow Cami: Maurices
• Blazer: Maurices
• Skirt: Maurices
• Necklace: Maurices (similar here)
• Sandals: Payless (here)

So, in spite of better judgement, I got some new shoes yesterday. Plural. I have actually been wanting a cute pair of rain boots for a while, and have had trouble finding them in my size, until Payless pulled through for me and a pair showed up on their website recently. And since they were doing buy one get one half off, obviously I had to buy some other pairs too. And since its not raining today, you get this outfit with one of the other pairs I ordered, but I just want everyone to know I'm prepared for the next rainy day. :) This skirt is actually one of my favorite skirts (I've had it about 3 years now), and when I saw this pair of sandals, I thought they would be perfect for this skirt (and a ton of other things too!). Yesterday, Lisa from Respect the Shoes (who has a seriously awesome blog, but I'm pretty sure everyone already knows that) asked some questions, and today, I have answers!

Who are you style icons? I actually don't really think I have any, and my knowledge of the larger world and industry of fashion is more limited than I would like, so about the only name that comes to mind is Tim Gunn. Now, I happen to think he seriously rocks, but he's not really an influence on my style (men's or women's clothing), at least in any way I'm aware of. A couple of my more stylish real life friends over the years have definitely left an impact though. I get a lot of ideas and influence from just seeing other people (including and especially style bloggers!) wearing things in creative ways, or I see something that just strikes me as something I like, and then I try it out myself. I'm definitely an advocate for being adventurous with fashion and just trying things to see if you like it. I've realized no one should ever be afraid of clothes.

How did you get into fashion? This is kinda hard for me to answer, and I'm still trying to fully understand it myself. I actually used to hate myself for my interest in fashion. I didn't even begin to understand my interest until the past 3 or 4 years. I guess one answer would be when I fell in love with a pair of my mom's pumps when I was about 5 or 6. I would have to say I was always a bit of an "artistic" child too, and I have always tried to find creative outlets in everything, but I was afraid of clothes and hyper aware of "girlie" things. I spent the next 20 or so years thinking I was seriously broken for liking women's clothes. As an adult I had a breakthrough when I realized that I should just wear what I like and that it meant nothing more or less other than I had an interest in women's fashions. Since then I have spent a lot of time learning what I like and don't like and how to talk about it. At first, I was very much like a lot of guys, and only knew that I liked something or didn't and didn't understand why, but I've learned a lot (and still have a lot to learn).

What are your fave shops? Well, since today's outfit is almost 100% Maurices, I have to say, its clearly a winner. I also enjoy Torrid, Payless, and Nine West a lot. I typically wear plus size clothing, and have a less common, larger shoe size. I know sizing can be a sensitive issue, and so I'm saying this because I hope it helps answer the question. Unfortunately, what this means is that there are some places that have clothes I find absolutely adorable but I just can't shop there due to sizing.

What's your fave kind of clothing (i.e., dresses, pants, skirts, etc.)? I have a serious addiction to shoes, especially colorful high heels, and tall boots. A lot of classic/retro dresses that my wife tells me are 50's and 60's inspired (I'm still sorting out eras in fashion). But I am a child of the 80's and I can definitely see that the occasional milder reinterpretation of the 80's catches my interest too. I am also a sucker for subtle feminine details. I'm not entirely sure I answered the right question here.

Well, I hope that wasn't too long! Thanks for reading. And I'm always up for more questions. And of course, my adorable wife took the pictures, as usual.

Just peachy.

• Top: Maurices
• Cardigan: Old Navy
• Denim Pencil Skirt: Z. Cavaricci from Maurices
• Shoes: Lela Rose for Payless
• Bag: Target

Way too often I put together an outfit by starting with the shoes, and this outfit had to go through several revisions because the shoes were all wrong. At first I had a cami underneath the cardigan, but it was too dark and showed through, and the shoes(which were a nude color...) just looked weird. I grabbed this top, and tried mixing similar shades of the same color like I've seen other bloggers wear. And I just had to give up on the shoes, but this is another pair that I don't wear that often(I should, they're great, but they just never seem quite right when I reach for a pair of shoes...). And of course my amazing wife took the pictures.

Skirting the issue.

• Top: Walmart
• Skirt: Maurices
• Shoes: Payless

I really love this skirt, and I think the color of the pumps really works well with them. Unfortunately, like so many of my skirts, I have had a hard time figuring out tops that work well with them. This is one of my older shirts, and I picked it out for this outfit because it wasn't horrible, not because I thought it went well. The top came from a late night trip to Walmart because its not always easy shopping for clothes when you're a crossdresser. Its a lot easier now because of my wife's support and online shopping(ugh, but sizing is another matter entirely). A big problem I have with tops is that my shoulders are pretty wide, and once I find a size that fits my shoulders, the rest of the top is just too ill-fitted to wear. My wife was the photographer today.