A year in review

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted much recently. I have been feeling rather out of sorts and just not with it.

I decided to look back at the goals that I set myself last year.

* I did continue to come out to people around me, but haven't said anything to people who I am sure know but choose to say nothing.

* My work commitments did indeed increase significantly, but I completely failed to delegate anything to prevent it from swamping my girl time.

* My plan for frequency of outings fell off a cliff. Not only did I fail to achieve an average of getting out once every 5 days, I didn't even come close. In fact, with just 51 outings for the year, I didn't even average one outing per week. :(

* I still had problems with lacking ideas of things to do en femme, but push my comfort zone and do a few new things. I caught a train to the Sydney CBD and back twice, the first time in a blonde wig in May and the second time wigless in August. In between those, my third time out wigless was the first time putting fuel in my car en femme, as I drove to the outskirts of Sydney and took a suburban train into the city and back. My fourth trip to Sydney was in September for IMATS, when I again drove to outskirts and caught a suburban train.

Sadly, I didn't get in touch with our former belly dance teacher, and while I believe that she still lives in the same place, her web site no longer exists and she doesn't show up in any web searches.

* My sleep patterns continued to be a disaster last year, and in the past few days I've started making a real effort to fix that, in spite of my wife making it difficult due to her sleep patterns. I still don't know how it will work with cafe nights, particularly as others make an effort to make the nights run as late as possible.

* I haven't improved my organisation for preparing to go out, and the building work that I was hoping would have helped with that, which should have been well under way by now has not even started, for reasons beyond my control.

There have been a few times both last year and this year that my wife being in bed asleep has prevented me from going out during the day. By the time she gets up, I feel that it's too late to bother. :(

* I keep thinking about trying to go for a smaller breast size, but haven't done anything about it. I think that my present D-cup size fits my frame and downsizing would probably not look right. I think I've decided by default to do nothing and simply continue with what I have.

* I achieved my goal of wearing halterneck tops and dresses. Sort of. I don't think that I mentioned it but, while in Sydney for work in August, I bought 2 new style body shapers that loop over the sides of a bra instead of having shoulder straps, which made halter a much more viable option. I wore a halter dress for the first time in September and my first halter top in October, but with outings coming to a virtual halt, they were the only halter outfits I've worn out. One dress, one top, no plural.

* When I went back to my posts from early last year, I discovered that the 5th of January was an anniversary of more than one thing. Not only was it the first anniversary of having my nails done in acrylic and gel, but it was also the first anniversary of the first time I ever went out en femme without a wig. I think that both are very significant events, and somehow I had forgotten that these events had happened on the same day.

The interesting thing about going wigless was that it became habit forming. It took me until June to go out wigless for the second time, but the third time was just 3 days later, when I went shopping in Sydney with friends. At that stage, I still hadn't been out wigless in Newcastle. It took another 3 weeks before I finally challenged myself to go out wigless locally, and I haven't worn a wig since! That's right, in all of my outings en femme, I haven't worn a wig since 21st June. I'm not saying that I won't wear a wig again, but for now I'm going to enjoy living with my own hair.

* I just started to type that I have not made any progress on packing my girl stuff to travel, then realised that by going out with my own hair, I no longer need to pack a wig. If I decide to wear a wig while away, I'll have to look at the options then. In the meantime, I'm thinking that I should just get a large suitcase or backpack with enough space. Packing my hip and buttock padding without damaging it remains the biggest issue.

I might have a look around the local shops in the next few days. :)

* I've made completely and utterly no progress on my female voice. :(

* As mentioned above, I've maintained my nails long and painted for over a year now, and the colours are nowhere nearly as subtle as at the beginning of the year. Yay. :)

* I ended 2010 at 72.5kg. Sadly, I ended 2011 at 83.5kg, and was 85kg a few days ago. At the same time as realising a few days ago that I really need to make an effort with my sleep patterns, I've also realised that I need to make a serious effort with my weight!