First outfit of spring.

• Top: Maurices (previously)
• Skirt: Maurices (previously)
• Sandals: Payless

Megan of Megan Mae Daily is hosting a challenge this week to showcase your stripes. Since the weather around here has suddenly and dramatically become gorgeous and springy, I decided to go for something simple and suitable for just enjoying the weather. And I while I originally planned to get caught up on some blogging this weekend, the weather was too nice to stay inside, and my cabin fever won out, so we went exploring on the back roads in the countryside on Saturday. I may have found some neat places to do some outfit photos in the future, so I'll just save the details for a later post (hopefully one with pictures! :) ). Oh, and of course, my beautiful 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!)

Dinner and a haircut.

My outfit

• Dress: Asos (buy)
• Belt: Torrid (previously)
• Cardigan: Maurices (previously)
• Tights: JC Penney
• Boots: Nine West

My Wife's Outfit

• Top: Kohl's
• Skinny Jeans: Torrid
• Pumps: Nine West

The month of January was a bit of a rollercoaster, it had some major ups, and some frustrating downs, but mostly a lot of things to take up a lot of time. Hopefully my schedule will calm down for a bit. But this post is about a very big personal up for me. And since I said I would do Fabulous in February as organized by Hope and Melissa, I think this post will work into that quite well.

Early in January, I lucked into finding a seller on Craigslist who first had shoes in my size, and then clothes, and posted about that. For my second visit, I actually went dressed up, without my wife accompanying me, to see a person I didn't really know that well. That was a big deal for me, and a positive experience to be accepted by people in a situation like that. I'm sure I will post some outfits with the clothes I bought soon, but it turns out that was actually a good warm-up for the next weekend.

Our last haircuts were at Halloween, and we went in costume to get that haircut, and so I always had that to fall back on if anyone said anything. This time, however, there was nothing to hide behind. I dressed how I wanted, and thankfully, the hair salon we use is pretty cool like that. In hindsight, its hard to see why I was nervous, one of the stylists had a beard that went quite well with his dress. My stylist did a wonderful job on my hair, and that was a great start to the evening. And the outdoor pictures are at the park we've used several times before after the trip to the salon.

Next, we met up with two other female friends for dinner at an Asian fusion restaurant. I'll freely admit I was pretty nervous at this point, but I felt good about how I looked. We waited in the car until one of the friends arrived, and then headed in to get a table. Even though it was early, we ended up having to wait for a table, even after our other friend joined us. Dinner was good, and the waiter didn't say anything if he noticed.

Dinner ended up being a wonderful success. Ironically, the biggest shock of the evening was nothing. I felt pretty normal, and no one seemed to notice at all. We both enjoyed ourselves, got haircuts we were happy with, and had a fun dinner with some of our friends. I'm definitely looking forward to our next outing. I'm not sure when it will be, but the confidence boost I've gotten from my supportive friends and from all the wonderful support I've gotten from commenters and other bloggers.

And on that note, as part of Hope and Melissa's challenge, I'm supposed to list three positives about myself:

1. I'm honest. It's not always easy, and it doesn't always make getting along with other people easier, but I find it very difficult to deceive or maintain deceptions.
2. Crossdressing. I spent a good portion of my life feeling like crossdressing was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I still have plenty of down days. Whether this is a "lifestyle", a "hobby", or whatever, this is something I have never quite been able to "not" do. But this is part of who I am, and its not going away, and now I'm trying to enjoy and make it a positive, constructive part of my life.
3. I like my legs. It's probably my number one physical feature that gets comments here, and I don't think anyone had ever said anything about my legs before I started openly wearing skirts. And I admit I can't always see it myself, but I do like my legs, and I will say that here.

And with that, I hope I'll get back to a regular schedule and finding out what I've missed on everyone's wonderful blogs. And of course, my awesome wife took most of the pictures in today's post.

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.