An observation about nail colour choice

I'm very aware that I haven't been out much this year. It's over 2 years since I stopped going to the cafe nights regularly, and over a year since I went there at all. Other outings have also been infrequent.

While outings have been infrequent, the desire to go out has not. At least once every day, I think about when I might next have an opportunity to go out en femme. Most of the time, particularly when I consult my work diary, I don't actually know when there will next be an opportunity.

For example, I have work booked after 3pm on the next three Tuesday afternoons, and when I went to cafe nights, I aimed to finish my scheduled work at 3pm so that I could actually finish by about 4:30. Of those three, there is only one that has a moderate chance of taking little enough time that I could finish by 4:30. The only other chance would be if I had a cancellation.

Sometimes, I find an opportunity and start planning an outfit and outing, only to have work or family wipe out the opportunity entirely. Sometimes, I try to push past the obstacles but it rarely works. The Halloween Tinkerbell plan this year is an example of this ~ I originally planned to do it, then it appeared that I was going to be in Sydney for the weekend. While my family went to Sydney, I stayed home but not to go out as Tinkerbell but because I had two lots of tax paperwork that had to be completed. I did one lot on the Saturday (missing out on Halloween) and the other on the Sunday (missing out on wearing a '50s outfit to Chromefest). I've had several people comment about the fact that I didn't turn up at Halloween, particularly those who saw me last year or had heard about it.

In spite of all of this, I choose my nail colours based not on coordinating with my regular male apparel but on what I hope to wear. I choose red, orange or bronze, because I've decided what outfit I want to wear next time I go out, or I've chosen something specific such as a pair of earrings that I want to build an outfit around.

So, in effect, by continuing to choose bold colours, I'm declaring that I still hope to go out en femme before (or to) my next nail appointment. I guess if I go back to neutrals that disappear into my hands or regular clothes, that will be an indication that I've given up hope.

Hair accessories

Yet again, I've been so over-run with work that I haven't had a chance to post. Then again, until yesterday I didn't have much to write about.

After going to the Lindy Charm School last month, I decided that I wanted some red imitation roses to go with the dress and skirt that I haven't worn yet, both of which have a red rose print on them. The right shade for those should also go well with the dress that I wore to the Lindy Charm School.

The imitation flowers that I got from the Lindy Charm School this year and last year started off as ordinary stemmed decorative flowers. The stems on most of these imitation flowers are glued into a socket on the back of the flower. It's quite easy to pull the stem out, pierce a hole across the socket then push a bobby pin through that hole. That's what had been done to the ones from last year. The ones from this year had had the stems removed but (possibly an oversight) hadn't been pierced, so they had to be pinned on using bobby pins on the outer petals.

On Tuesday, I was walking past an op shop, and decided to have a look for curtains for the house that we bought recently. While I didn't find any curtains, I spotted a bucket of artificial flowers, including one rose of the sort of shade of red that I was looking for and a rather large, almost white rose. At $1 each, I grabbed them both. :-)

On Saturday morning, I decided to have a look around a few other op shops. At one, I found a bunch of 7 bright orange artificial roses with no price label. When I asked the price, the woman first said 50c, then immediately changed her mind and said 20c. That was a price I just couldn't refuse!

After I got home, I got enthusiastic about removing the stems and putting bobby pins onto them. As luck would have it, a small metal spike to make the hole, followed by a bead reamer that my wife uses to clean up the holes in beads for making jewellery worked beautifully for making the holes.

Mind you, there is one flower in this photo that doesn't have a bobby pin. The one at the right end of the 2nd row, which I wore to the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival, was actually made as a hair clip, and has a spring clip on it, making it a little less usable than the others. The middle and right ones in the bottom row came from the Lindy Charm School last year and the rest I converted yesterday.

I've now got quite a few hair flowers, so I'll need to try to find time amongst my currently insane work schedule to wear some of them. That's if I can get back down to a weight that works for any of my clothes ~ I've been comfort eating and I'm currently around 86kg. :-(

Lindy Charm School revisited

This post is now almost a fortnight overdue. Life got busy, and having a dramatic increase in our level of debt (to the highest it's ever been) combined with a high level of demand for my work as encouraged me to concentrate on that work because it has the potential to help reduce the debt!

On Sunday, 20th October, I went to the Lindy Charm School again, as I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I had hoped to do.

In preparation, on the Friday night I drove my son to Sydney to visit my wife's relatives, as planned. I then spent an inordinate amount of Saturday evening preparing myself for the outing on Sunday. I think that by the time I got to bed, it was only about 4 hours until my alarm was due to go off.

This has become a noticeable pattern for me. Like IMATS, the fact that I've bought a ticket to the event is ultimately what makes the difference between giving up before I get organised and actually following through.

Sunday's outfit consisted of the dress that I got from Miskonduct at the end of August, my red Siren stilettos, a pair of red seamed nude tights that I bought directly from the UK a few months ago (which I thought worked very well with the dress and shoes), a pair of red fabric covered button style earings that I got from Miskonduct last year (which look like a miniature version of the buttons on the dress), and a bright red handbag that I got from Miskonduct in early October.

I gained quite a bit from the day at Lindy Charm School, including many details that I didn't remember at all from last year. Being very conscious that I could remember so little from last year, I made an effort to pay attention to a lot of details. I know that I need to practice soon, but I'm more confident that when I do, I will be able to remember the necessary details.