Flickr Without Burning Out

 

Or The Lazy Girls Guide To Flickr

Flickr Burn Out? It's definitely a thing. Something to be wary of, if you are active on Flickr. This post is about how I have learnt to enjoy being on Flickr and avoided being burnt out by it.

First, I should explain, in case some don't know,  that Flickr is a photo storage and sharing website aimed at photographers. However, it has been turned into a form of social media by the transgender community, with a lot of Tgirls and trans women and trans men and crossdressers using it as a way of interacting with each other. 

Basically, you post photos of yourself onto the site. You also seek out other users to view their photos,  and before too long, you will have a list of people you follow. And hopefully a list of people who follow you. And you can comment on people's photos and they can comment on yours. There are groups you can join to post photos in, which gives your photos a wider audience, and you can join in discussions. 

Unlike a lot of modern social media, these days, Flickr is quite old school, and very unobtrusive. It doesn't constantly try to connect you to other users, unlike Meta products like Facebook and Instagram. And it doesn't bombard you with unsolicited content that clogs up your viewing feed. If you are on the free version,  you do have to put up with adverts, but other than that,  you choose what content you want to see.

You can block or remove anyone who you don't want to be able to interact with you. In general, it's a good place to hang out and enjoy interacting with other people in the TG community. 

I've found Flickr to be very important in my life as a Tgirl. I've made some very good friends on there. I've been inspired by many of the wonderful photographs of other Tgirls, and also by how many of them conduct themselves and live their lives.

I have had so much support from others, and had some wonderful comments on my photos  which has helped myself to develop and thrive as my girl self. It's been wonderful and I will never leave it. It's been good to me.

But there is a downside to it. You can end up suffering from, what is essentially, Flickr Burn Out. But how does something that's so positive, end up burning you out? 

With Flickr, it's entirely possible to do too much of it. It can become a little addictive. Getting positive feedback and lovely comments on your photos, really does feel good. And you have so many photos from other users, to view and comment on. It's great. And this is both the positive and negative aspect of Flickr. 

It's possible to get yourself into a situation, where feel a need to post photos on a regular basis to keep yourself seen. And also to receive that positive validation that can come from getting lots of views, comments and people adding your photos as favourites. It can also feel good when lots of other users want to follow you.  And you want to follow others. And it's always nice to comment on the photos of those you follow. And it's wonderful when they comment on your photos. You get a genuine endorphin rush when that happens. And surely that's good, right? Well yes and no.

It's always nice to receive positive feedback on how we look, or what we are up to in our TG lives. But we can end up doing too much of it. Ultimately, if we aren't careful, Flickr can end becoming a dominating factor in our lives. And it can become a chore.

Following too many other users. Feeling a pressure to post regularly, and for some that can mean several times a day.  Feeling a need to actually create photographic content to post and suffering from anxiety as a result. Feeling a need to comment on everyone's photos. And feeling a need to reply to every comment on your own photos. All of this can make Flickr become a chore. It can take over your life. Before you know it, your constantly thinking about creating content, spending hours viewing other peoples content and commenting on it, and spending hours responding to comments on your photos. And if you fall behind on any of this you can feel a sense of anxiety.  Your entire life can end up revolving around Flickr. 

When this happens, shouldn't we just stop? Give it up? Go cold turkey? For some  that may be necessary.  I reached the stage of feeling burnt out by Flickr a few months ago. And recently, I've seen a few others withdrawing with signs of it. So it's time to get rid of it? Cut it out?  Well not if you actually enjoy Flickr and want the benefits, but not make it a burden or a negative in your life. 

Here's how I stepped back from too much Flickr use, without having to do rehab.  

First I looked at how many people I was following. It was 600. That's a lot of people to follow. And some people follow thousands of other users! The activity feed can become a continuous blur of feminine loveliness to view and comment on. Too much feminine loveliness in fact. I decided that I needed to follow a lot less people. But who to keep following and who to cut from the list? 

I began by cutting anyone who hadn't posted for a year or longer. The exception being some close friends who had sadly passed away. I kept them, because sometimes I like to reminisce and visit their pages. But anyone else who was inactive got cut. That reduced the list by about 150 people. Next I looked at people who I never really engaged with. Most of these were people who had followed me, and I had felt that I should reciprocate. Reciprocating is one way to guarantee an unwieldy list of people you follow. Only follow back if you really love their content enough to want to actively engage with them.   Or if you like what you see and they begin to actively engage with you. By cutting out people who I never actively engaged with, I had the list down to about 200. Now I could see the wood for the trees. 

Flickr allows you to apply filters to who sees what content. And some of these filters apply directly to your followers. These filters can be applied to each individual followers. You can leave them as a basic Follower. Or you can add them as either a Friend or Family,  or both, so Friend & Family.  You can allow content to be viewed by just Family, or just Friends, or just Friends & Family or by Everyone. As well as targeting the content for these categories, which I rarely do, they serve another very useful function. You can see them as separate lists of your followers. And this is a very useful tool for helping to make using Flickr manageable. 

When you view your own Flickr Photostream, at the top of the page you have your avatar picture, and header with your name listed. Below your name is the number of people you follow, and the number that follow you. If you click on either of these, you access the lists of these people. You want to access the list of people you follow.  This automatically brings up a list of all of everyone you follow.  But at the top of that list you will see a box with Everyone written in it, the total number of people you follow, and an arrow indicating a drop down menu. Dropping down the menu reveals the categories as follows along with the number you follow in each category. At the moment mine reads.

Everyone (142)

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Following  (79)

Friends (39)

Family (35)

Friends and Family (11)

And by clicking on each, you get a list of just those in each category.  And that is a big part of how you keep Flickr manageable. 

I try to keep my total list of everone I follow to around 200 or less. At the moment it's 142. That's still a large number, although much less than many people follow.  If I was going to interact with every person who is posting regularly, and comment on all of their photos,  I would be there all day. I used to actually have many more people who I followed, and I used to comment on all of their photos and I would be up into the wee small hours of the morning doing it, and going into work, bleary eyed with a couple of hours sleep. Definitely not healthy or sustainable.  So I make the Following, Friend, Family categories work to help manage the situation. 

Following  

That's people who I don't interact with that regularly. But I enjoy seeing their content when I have the time. If I really like something they've posted, I might comment on it or Favourite it.

Friends 

These are people who, in an ideal world, I would like to view their photos, comment on them, and maybe favourite them if I have the time. 

Friends and Family 

This is the smallest list. Never more than 15 people are on this list. This are people I follow, who I regard as my closest friends on Flickr. Some are people I have met, some are people I interact with regularly in some way, and some are people I just really like. I will always try and make time during the week,  to view and comment on at least some, if not all of their photos. 

So with these lists, I can now manage my viewing and interaction level depending on how busy my life is. For me personally, it's not sustainable to be able to comment on all of the photos of the people I'm following. That luxury tends to be reserved for a day when there's very little going on in my life, and I have hours to kill. That doesn't happen very often, but it's nice when it does. On these days I just view whatever is in my Activity Feed. 

A more usual situation is that I'm able to view my Friends list and run through it, once or twice a week and comment on at least some of the photos they have uploaded. 

Occasionally I am so busy that I can only manage a small window of time to spend looking at Flickr, so I will only view and interact with my Friends and Family list. These people are my closest friends and Flickr, and in many cases, in other ways. I care about these people and want to interact with them.

When things get really difficult for me, I step away from Flickr completely. No one is going to be any the worse of,  because they didn't receive a comment from Deeanna Williams for a week or two.  I usually make a post announcing that I'm going missing for a while. Just so no one expects anything or worries about my absence. 

And I forget about Flickr for a while. 

One aspect of Flickr that can create a rod for your own back, is comments on your photos. Not the comments themselves. But a need to say thank you to each comment poster. If you are especially popular and get lots of comments, you can spend hours replying to comments, thanking everyone.  I have done this in the past. It can consume most of your alloted Flickr time, if you're going to do this. I now only respond if a comment requires a response. Perhaps they ask a question or make a point you want to reply to. That's ok. Just don't get yourself into an endless rut of typing, "Thank you for your lovely comment xx" time and time again. This way lies madness.

Now let's move onto posting your lovely images.  Some people post all of the photos that took in a photo session, all at once. And most of those photos will have much fewer views and less interaction than the first 3 photos in the batch upload. Because people don't usually go far back beyond what they see in the Activity Feed. It's far better to upload between 1 and 3 photos at a time, rather than a dozen. 

Posting daily can also create problems, especially if, like me, you like to write a narrative to accompany your photos. Quite simply, the more you post,  the more you have to find to say. And you want to write something that people want to read. So you end up having to be constantly creative. I have found myself struggling to find a narrative to accompany a photo on many occasions. So I now adopt the mantra 'Less Is More'. I post when I have a photo and narrative ready to post. And I post it when I feel ready and not to some self imposed deadline. This means that I'm not too burnt out and frazzled to write a narrative for my photo. And to myself, at least,  it feels like each photo drop is more of an event, rather than an endless task of posting photos. Posting on Flickr should not feel like the task of Sisyphus.

So that's my guide to keeping Flickr fun, and avoiding spending too much time and effort on it. Always remember, it's supposed to a pleasure using it, and never a chore

Deeanna 

💋💋💋

 

A Bustle In Your Hedgerow?

 

"If There's a bustle,

In your hedgerow, 

Don't be alarmed now, 

It's just a Spring clean, 

For the May Queen"

Lyrics courtesy of 'Stairway To Heaven' by Led Zeppelin 

Exactly what a Victorian fashion accessory might be doing in the bushes, I don't know, but I'm always happy when May arrives, with or without the May Queen. It's usually my favourite month of the year. The FA Cup Final and the conclusion of the football season. The Eurovision Song Contest,in all of its wonderfully camp glory, and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The weather is usually nice. Pleasantly warm, but not too hot. And never too wet. Just nice. And it's a month when I usually begin to shake off any Winter related malaise.

But this was definitely not a normal May. The weather has been weird, to say the least.  At times, cold to the point of almost being frosty. Lot's of rain. And then a record breaking heatwave. It's definitely been a weather rollercoaster. 

And as a football lover, it's been a rollercoaster month on that front too. My team, Southampton has been doing well in EFL Championship this year and just missed out on automatic promotion to the Premier League. Nevermind, we were in the play offs and in great form. The Premier League beckoned. And then came the infamous 'Spygate'. Quite simply, we got caught spying on our opponents training sessions, which is against the rules and despite winning the Play Off  semi final, we ended up being thrown out of the Play Off Final. So I'm absolutely appalled and disgusted by the actions of a club I love. And it's going to cost the club tens of millions of pounds in lost income, not to mention the reputation and integrity of the club. The club's nickname is 'The Saints'. It will be 'The Sinners' from now on.

Eurovision was the worse one I can remember, with a very poor selection of songs, except for the winner, Bulgaria's Dara with a banger of tune called 'Bangaranga'. The UK entry was rubbish. And it has to be said this was probably the least camp and queer Eurovision since the days when Sandie Shaw was singing about puppets. And it had the spectre of Israel's participation and the boycott by five member states. 

So what's been happening here at home. Well things have continued to be difficult, but with some considerable light at the end of the tunnel.  We have had some help from occupational health for my Wife and we also got offered funding for her to spend a 7 day break in a residential care home to give me some much needed respite.  So hopefully we can get that organised before too long. I will be using the opportunity to spend as much time dressed as Deeanna as possible, and will try and time the break for a time when I can visit my friend Veronica and her wife. Maybe a day out in Penzance  for a walk along the lovely promenade in a vintage dress. I'm also thinking about possibly having a makeover done at Sophie's Dressing Service in Plymouth. Whatever happens it will be an opportunity for lots of femme time, and it will be a chance for me to recharge my energies. 

My last post on here, was about my little dressing space in the garden. Well I had a rather unnerving experience in there a couple of weeks ago. I went over to sort through my wardrobe. And when I came to come back out   the door lock mechanism broke, and I couldn't open the door. I was trapped. And I didn't have my mobile phone with me. The windows are toughened glass, so it would have been difficult to break them. I thought that I would be trapped until my Wife noticed me missing and called for help. I decided to run at the door and shoulder charge it,throwing my whole weight against it. This I did and thankfully it flew open. It was a huge relief to be out. I could have been locked in there for a long time. Definitely a lesson learned about always carrying my mobile phone with me. Once out, I called a locksmith, who replaced the broken lock mechanism for a price that wasn't too bad.

The garden is looking very nice at the moment with plenty of floral colour on display. I do enjoy gardening. Besides crossdressing, it's my greatest passion. And May is also the month when the flower shows start, with the Malvern Spring Show and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. As a member of the RHS, I used to attend both, but sadly due to my caring duties it's been over a decade since I last attended one. But I enjoyed the coverage on the telly, and this year seemed a very good show. Here a few photos of my own garden.

So what's been happening on the dressing front, I pretend to hear you ask? 

Well I managed two dressing sessions during May. Do you remember the blue Seasalt dress that I mentioned buying last month? You don't?

Let me jog your memory.  I posted an AI generated imagining of what I might look like in it.

AI Image Of Seasalt Dress

Well I had a few hours to dress and so I was able to actually wear the dress and scarf as per my design. And it looks and feels great to wear. I'm very pleased with it. It's definitely going to be a dress that gets a lot of use. I teamed it with a navy blue scarf, as per my AI creation.

Wearing The Actual Seasalt Dress

I also wore the dress without the scarf for those days when the weather is a little warmer. It's a wonderful dress.

Seasalt Dress Sans Scarf

Did I say warmer weather? Oh yes I did. Much warmer weather. Not just warmer, but full on Mediterranean heat. The mercury climbed to 30 degrees C, which is very rare in Cornwall. But it didn't stop me having another short dressing session. I just went with the hot conditions and dressed to deal with them. I wore my blue paisley patterned, kaftan type dress with my actual rose tinted sunglasses, and found a shady spot in the garden to sit and relax in the early evening. 

Enjoying The Warm Weather 

At the end of the month I shared a lovely phone call with my good friend Rebecca George, a Tgirl from London.  We have been friends since 2011, and so it was lovely to chat to her. Sadly she is having a difficult time at the moment, because her wife is unwell, and she is having to juggle being a carer with her busy life.  As a fellow carer, I offered her my support. But to be honest, the last thing we really need is to moan about our respective caring situations, so we just had an enjoyable chat about our lives as Tgirls. She's a lovely girl and speaking to her is always a joy. 

Rebecca George 

Rebecca writes fashion articles for TransLiving International and has many published in the old print magazine they used to publish, and now provides articles for their online site.

https://transliving.co.uk/articles/

https://transliving.co.uk/author-rebecca-george/

She also has many wonderful photos on Flickr, where you can also read her wonderful stories about the scandalous Lady Rebecca Georgina Arabella Lyndon, Duchess of Basingstoke, and her life as the most titled and notorious call girl known to high society. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rebecca_george/

She really is one of the most creative and fun spirits I know and a total joy in my life.

So onto next months plans. I hope to dress a lot more next month.  I have just taken delivery of a new dress from Damart, which I hope to wear early in the month.  I have created an AI image of what it should look like on me. I am going to buying some white tennis shoes next month.

AI Creation Of Damart Dress

I'm also going to wear the dress I bought from Lands End Clothing last month.

AI Creation Of Lands End Dress

And hopefully I will get the chance to put this look together later in the month. 

AI Creation Of Blue Dress And White Lace 

So let's hope June goes as planned. 

Deeanna 

💋💋💋

Deeanna's Sanctuary

 

This little building is Deeanna's sanctuary. The place I can be the real me. The place that I can the solace and satisfaction that can only come from my crossdressing. Without this space, Deeanna couldn't exist. And ultimately without this space, I couldn't exist at all. 

When I began crossdressing regularly back in 2009, I made a decision to be honest about it and tell my Wife. It wasn't a smooth coming out process. My Wife was not happy about it, and we had a rough few weeks, during which, we nearly broke up.  But we managed to work through it, and eventually came to an arrangement based on compromise. My Wife didn't want to see me dressed or know any details about femme life. I could dress when she was out, and I was home alone. I could go out dressed for trips out to see friends or out shopping. And when I was with my Wife at home, I was just the same me, she'd always known me as. Her husband.

The arrangement worked brilliantly. I was living in South Hampshire, and went out for two evenings a month to the Totton Disco and the T-Girls Get Together event in Lyndhurst. I even had overnight stays in Milton Keynes to attend events at Pink Punters LBGTQ+ nightclub.  Sometimes I would go out for a meal with friends. I also had days out shopping and trips to Bristol, Bath, Oxford, Salisbury and London on the train. Sometimes on my own and sometimes to meet friends.  And from Spring through Summer, and into early Autumn, I had nearly every Saturday to myself, from late morning, to the early hours of Sunday morning, as my Wife worked for a company that did the catering at weddings. Those Saturdays were pure bliss. It was all going very well.  It was the perfect compromise. Until it wasn't. 

The arrangement worked brilliantly for three and a half years, and my crossdressing existed in a careful situation that minimised it's impact on my Wife. My clothes were kept in a closet I built in the loft. I would go up and bring down whatever I needed and keep it out of sight, until I was ready to dress and become Deeanna. 

And then it slowly went wrong. During 2011, my Wife had a few unexplained problems with her balance and numbness in her legs and. She had a couple of falls. But the GP suggested trapped nerves and possibly an inner ear infection. Then she had a problem in her hand and the GP said it was carpet tunnel syndrome. She developed pains in her face and was told it was neuralgia. And then she had massive spasms in her legs and the GP said that all of the problems he had seen as seperate problems, might be related. He hadn't been able to join up the dots. My Wife was referred to a neurologist and diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in the Autumn of 2012. And her condition declined rapidly from then until the following Summer when she had to give up work. This was devastating for us both. And it had a major impact on my ability to dress as Deeanna. 

By the Summer of 2013, my Wife had given up work, and was at home 24/7. She couldn't go out unattended. So there was no longer any opportunities to dress. And as the year progressed, her health and mobility rapidly declined.  2013 was also a difficult year  because it was bookended with the death of my mother in January, but my father in November.  A very stressful time without my main coping strategy of crossdressing to lean on. With my parent's deaths, I inherited a reasonable sum of money from their estate. And in the Spring of 2014, as my Wife's condition continued to get worse, I made the decision to give up work and become a full time carer for my Wife. 

So between the Summer of 2013 and the Summer of 2016, I wasn't able to crossdress at all. My clothes remained untouched in the loft. And slowly but surely, my mental health deteriorated to an existential level by 2016. And that was entirely down to not connecting properly with my inner femininity. And in July of that year, I got myself into a Do Or Die frame of mind. And I found myself taking the Do option, thankfully.  I brought down from loft and stashed some lingerie in the spare bedroom. By now my Wife was finding using the stairs difficult, so would only go up or down them when she had to. I would sometimes tell my Wife that I was going for an afternoon nap  while she was downstairs, and I would quietly dress in the bedroom. And I would dress downstairs in the early hours of the morning, while she was up in bed. It wasn't much but it did help to provide some comfort and relief for me. And then things took a dramatic turn. 

My Wife had two bad falls in quick succession. Both required ambulance call outs. And the second fall resulted in my Wife being unable to get up the stairs to bed or shower for over a week. It was very distressing. It quickly became clear that we needed to move to single storey living and get rid of stairs in our lives. So a bungalow was needed. We lived in Hampshire and bungalows there were way out of our price range. But in the county I come from, Cornwall, they were definitely affordable and we would be able to sell our home and pay off the mortgage and buy the new home, thanks to the difference in house prices between the two areas. 

And this presented me with a wonderful opportunity. To find a property that had a space seperate from the house for me to set up us a dressing space and somewhere to keep my femme clothes. We viewed a bungalow that was perfect. It had a summerhouse in the garden that was being used as a sauna. It had the perfect potential for us, both for my Wife and for Deeanna. And so we bought it and moved down to Cornwall, nearly 10 years ago. 

It took a while to get the summerhouse ready for Deeanna. For a few years it was just a useful place to store stuff, but I had my clothes stored safely in there, and I could get dressed out of my Wife's view and knowledge. And eventually I turned it into my little private space. 

This little summerhouse has become my little sanctuary and a little place for Deeanna. I have a wardrobe, and the old sauna cubicle to store my clothes in. I have a lot of items that I collected down the years, including stuff I have owned since I was a child, which I keep in there. It's a lovely little space for me to spend time in. 

Most importantly, it allows me to carry on crossdressing without upsetting my Wife, who struggles mentally because of her condition. Anything that I can do to alleviate her stress is important. But I need to be able to exist myself as my femme self, in order to be able to stay healthy and functioning. And the three year enforced hiatus that I had between 2013 and 2016 reinforced that. It's essential that I crossdress and not something that is optional. And this private space gives me that. 

Sitting in front of my happy place 

My space contains a lot of memorabilia from my past, including these model cars from when I was a child.

I have a small collection of mail order catalogues from the 1970s and 1980s  in my little space. 

With my sci fi toys that I have had for 50 years.

It's quite simply my sanctuary and happy place. 

💋💋💋

April

 

April has been a really busy month with just one very short dressing opportunity. It's been a month of laying down foundations upon which to build upon in the near future. 

The main priority of the month was organising the fitting of the ceiling hoists which will be necessary to allow respite carers to come and look after my Wife, giving me the opportunity to have some time to my own thing. Which is mostly going to be crossdressing related. 

So we've had seemingly endless enquiries and responses, surveys being done and quotes being sent to us. And finally we had the hoists installed on the last day of the month. So hopefully it won't be too long before the respite care cavalry arrive. 

So my one dressing opportunity was a mere hour and a half, which included getting ready and changing back and make-up removal, so it was very brief. To be honest, it felt too rushed to enjoy it. And given everything going on at the moment, I really shouldn't have bothered. But I almost pressured myself into dressing bbecause I sometimes worry about losing my mojo with having to deal with my stressful life. I'm going to try and stop feeling like that, and just accept that sometimes life gets in the way, and proper dressing opportunities will eventually appear and be much more rewarding. Anyway here is a photo of me dressed in my vintage dress suit. It only just fitted so I'm glad I'm losing some weight. 

I think May will be a much better month for dressing. March and April were crammed full of appointments. Hopefully the schedule in May remains much less hectic. 

Of course only having one short dressing opportunity isn't ideal, but I have been doing a lot of work in  creating new looks to try out, and working to refine my wardrobe to give myself a much more versatile set of looks. And a couple of new dresses have arrived into my wardrobe to hopefully debut soon. Below are AI created impressions of how they will hopefully look on me.

AI Pics Of New Wardrobe Arrivals

And talking of AI, I have been using an AI platform, ChatGPT to help create style ideas and suggestions and it's really helping me to create new looks or improve older ones.  It does very much reflect ideas that are mine, back at me, but in a way that sorts out my jumbled ideas and thoughts, into something much more coherent. And it does come up with some very good styling suggestions in it's own right. AI has a place as a creative tool, and I use it as such to help me. But in certain creative areas, I definitely don't like it. Music, art and creative writing are areas where it should never be used. I wouldn't even use it to help me with this blog, because then it wouldn't be me. But I find it works well as my styling assistant. 

An example of this is styling a look based around my cobalt blue swing dress. 

The Original 

I asked for some styling  suggestions and it suggested a white cardigan and gloves. I wasn't sure, but got it to create an image  for me to view. 

ChatGPT Styling Suggestion

It also suggested white trainers be worn with the dress. And it really works as a look. I had a further idea to refine the look with a white lace top and lace gloves, both of which I already have in my wardrobe.  And the result was this.

ChatGPT Idea With My Ammendments 

So I now have a look I can create, that was a result of an AI collaboration. All I need to do is find some white trainers. It's definitely a useful tool to have in my styling locker. And it really helped with sorting out an ongoing wardrobe malfunction I have been struggling with. I won't go into details now, but I have a new bundle of hosiery arriving very soon. When it arrives, I will write more on the subject. 

As to my health and fitness, I'm eating better, losing weight slowly and feeling much better. I'm doing a lot more exercise and beginning to do some weight training to build up my muscles after some statin induced atrophy damaged them. 

One very upsetting event was the destruction of the LGBTQ+ nightclub, Pink Punters in an awful fire. To make it worse, it happened on a packed Saturday night. Thankfully everyone, both clubbers and staff all made it out safely, with a very effective evacuation process. 

The cause of the fire was arson, with a man being arrested. It's not been announced what the motive was, and it's important not to speculate. 

The building was completely gutted. Just a framework and the iconic roadside facade left. It's a sad sight to see. 

Pink Punters is a big part of TG history. Ever since I attended the UK Angels 10th Birthday Party in January 2010. I met a lot of new friends that night, and a good many of them are still on my life. I visited the club a few times after that. So it's very upsetting to see this happen to a place that exists to make people happy. 

The club's owners have said that the club will be rebuilt and reopened. I hope that it happens.

I will end by writing a few words about this blog. I have to admit that I haven't been fully engaged with the blogging world in recent weeks. I've been absorbed with getting the adaptations to the house done. I'm hopefully going to start posting more. And I'm going to try to keep up with the blogs I follow. 

Thank you. 

Deeanna 

💋💋💋

Mad March And Earlier Happenings

 

This is really a blog about the first quarter of the year,  to update the last post with the happenings of March, but also to include some things from earlier in the year, that I forgot to mention. 

For example I forgot to mention something amazing. I saw the Northern Lights. The Aurora Borealis appeared for a couple of nights back in late January and I managed to snap this photo on my phone camera. 

Aurora Borealis 

What an amazing sight, especially down in the far South West of the UK. This photo was snapped over the fence in my back garden. And to think that 11 years ago, I traipsed all the way to Iceland to try and see them and saw nothing. 

And here they are in my back garden. It really was wonderful to see them.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that I'm back on Facebook. Which is something that I have very mixed feelings about. I don't like Meta at all. I think they are a company that allows and in some ways itself abuses people for profit. I find it a necessary evil in my life. My reasons for returning to Facebook was simply, that the Beaumont Society is ending it's charity status and being a membership based organisation, and moving to being a free to join social group. And their main points of online interaction are going to be through their Facebook group which already exists and a Discord chat room. So to stay in contact with the group,  I have rejoined Facebook after a two year absence. I forgot how annoying Facebook has become in the last few years. But the positive is staying in touch with the Beaumont Society and reconnecting with old friends. It's especially nice to be in touch with Roz White and Kylie Hope again. However I had a problem with my account being suspended for absolutely no reason, which I had to appeal. Facebook definitely hasn't improved.

March has been filled with many medical appointments for my Wife along with her 60th birthday and our wedding anniversary. Also we have had a lot going on with getting assessments and surveys done for the fitting of hoists in the property. Once that is done, we can try and get a respite care package in place  which will allow me to have some time away from caring, and I'm hoping that a good proportion of that personal time will be spent en femme. But at the moment everything is in a state of flux, so I decided to not dress in March. That means that the first quarter of the year will have drawn to a close, with just one session dressed, back at the beginning of February. But I'm ok with that,  because I'm going to hopefully maximise my opportunities going forward. And hopefully that will start in April. Having had such little dressing time so far this year, really reinforces how much I need to dress.

The first quarter of the year, has been very difficult with a few health problems,  both physical and mental, but I'm moving into a much more positive time in my life, and looking forward to it being a better time for myself. I'm going to concentrate on my fitness and losing weight after Easter. My aim is to try and lose a stone by the end of the quarter, so 6kg lost by the end of June. I'm going to give it a good go.

I'm definitely going to dress later this month,  hopefully more than once, so hopefully I will have some new photos to show off soon. 

I did have some fun with AI to create a pop art image of myself, which you can see at the top of this post 

As to the blog, I have a few ideas of things to post, so watch this space.

Dee

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Back To Blogging

 

Well after a difficult couple of months,  I feel a lot better and able to resume my blogging.  A mixture of depression, my Wife's illness and the resulting care difficulties and also trying to organise a respite care package to give me some freedom. We have been assessed, but we need some equipment to be fitted to the property before we can get any carers in. We need to get some ceiling hoists fitted. But we now know what we need, so we can hopefully get things sorted soon. I'd like to have everything in place by the Summer. Here's hoping.

I won't go into any further details on the first couple of months of the year, because it's not really compatible with positive blogging, which is what I want to concentrate on. It's quite difficult for anyone trans to be positive in the current climate, with the attacks on our right to exist, the rise of the far right wing and Reform, and a far right wing lunatic in the White House, and a Labour government that seems to be intent on pandering to the right wing, to appeal to Reform voters. But rather than be miserable about it,  I took strength from the rise of the left wing and the victory of the Green Party and Hannah Spencer in the Gorten and Denton by- election. It was a victory of hope over hate, and I hope the left wing can galvanise and build on this wonderful victory. 

So we're into March, or as I call it, Mad March. March seems to always be ridiculously busy for us. We have our wedding anniversary and my Wife's birthday during this month. My Wife has a lot of dental and medical check ups during March. The car has it's MOT carried out during this month. And both the mobile hairdresser and podiatrist pay us a visit this month.  On top of this it's always a busy month in the garden. And this time around, there is all of the caregiving issues to get sorted. So it feels non stop. 

Given how busy I am, there is very little time to dress, but I'm hoping to try and get at least one short session in this month. Fingers crossed 🤞

 I'm quite excited because I have been very daring and ordered myself a pvc mini dress from the fetish clothing company, Honour. 

'Gloria' dress from Honour Clothing 

I do love shiny pvc clothes, and I always wanted a zip up dress like this. It was in a sale so I took the plunge. At some point I would like to buy some shiny thigh high platform boots to wear with it.  It's definitely not a dress for normal every day wear,  but sometimes it's good to put together a special look. Hopefully I will look good wearing it. 

This is an AI interpretation of how I hope I might look in this dress with some matching thigh boots. It's definitely a kinky look, but then I can be a little kinky sometimes, and I'm definitely not ashamed to admit it. 

I'm also thinking about getting a tattoo done. "A tattoo at your age?" I hear you cry. Well I've always liked how they look on women. So why not? The tattoo I'm thinking of is of the rose that features on the cover of the 'Violator' album by my favourite band Depeche Mode. I always thought it was a very powerful, yet feminine image, that can also be worn by a man, because of the Depeche Mode connection. I've seen a few tattoos of this design and I love them. 

The cover of 'Violator' by Depeche Mode 

I would have on my right upper arm. I think it would look good when worn with a sleeveless dress, and very feminine. I would leave the word Violator off though. Possibly use the title of the single Enjoy The Silence as in this example I found on the internet. Or I may have no words and more of the lower leaves included. After all the lyrics of 'Enjoy The Silence' do state

 "Words are very unnecessary, 

They can only do harm"

An example of the kind of tattoo I would like 

I think I'll go for black ink rather than red, because it allows for finer detail in the shading and looks better on skin than in red. And this image has been used in black on many occasions by the band. 

I know a few of my friends don't like tattoos on women, but I like them if they're feminine and not covering the woman, and  I think they look great with retro swing dresses. 

Below is an AI interpretation of how this tattoo might look on me.

AI interpretation of tattooed me

As you can see from the images on this blog post, I have been using AI to create alternative images from photos I upload into the Dola AI creator. It's a bit of fun and at times useful. I prefer to be authentic, so I won't be passing of AI images of myself  and claiming they are real  like a few people I've come across on Flickr,  but I find it useful to visualise what an outfit looks like on me sometimes, such as the image I used earlier of myself in this black pvc outfit. Another example of using AI like this, is when I wanted to know if a yellow retro swing dress would suit me. Well rather than spend money on one and being disappointed, I used Dola AI to change the colours of a dress I liked in a photo, to yellow. 

The original image in pink

And by the powers of AI, in yellow 

And the answer provided by AI is yes, yellow suits me very well. So I can now search for a yellow dress in this style, knowing it will look good on me.

So hopefully next month we are getting the survey done for the fitting of the ceiling hoists   and I hope to have them fitted and in use by early Summer. Again fingers crossed 🤞 

Next month also sees Record Store Day on Saturday the 18th and I'll be queuing up outside my nearest record shop, Lucky's Record Bar in Redruth from about 6.30am to get the records I want. I've got the Human League, Sisters Of Mercy, Empire Of The Sun, Status Quo and XTC on my hit list this year. The guy who owns the shop will make sure he has them ordered for me. But it's first come first served with no reservations allowed, hence the ungodly hour I will be queuing from. 

I'm hoping to have a few dressing opportunities, as the month is much quieter for me, and if the weather is nice, it would be nice to wear one of my vintage dresses. 

Well that's it for this bloggy catch up. Hopefully normal blogging service is resumed.

Be good my friends, and if you can't be good be careful. 

Dee 

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The Blog That Doesn't Blog?

 

That seems like an appropriate title for this blog at the moment. I haven't felt the motivation or had the time to write for my blog this year. Normally I would write about the month just gone, but I did want to be more positive in my blogging this year, and it really hasn't been the kind of month that has many positives in it. So I didn't write about it. There has been a difficult and ongoing situation with trying to sort out a caring package for my Wife, that will carry us forward. And the difficulties in sorting that out, have triggered a visit from the Black Dog (depression not a black labrador).

It would be easy to give up the blog, with everything that's going on at the moment, but I do enjoy writing it, and so I'm going to return to it when I can. Hopefully next month.

I apologise for not keeping up to date with the blogs I follow. Again, please bear with. 

I did manage to get a dressing session in on the first of February. This means that I'm afraid that I failed in my attempt to dress during every calender month of the year. I had two planned sessions at end of the month that were foiled by caring issues, so in the end, I was greatful to get a clear morning to spend dressed. So I do have some new pics to share,which I think are quite nice.

I will hopefully be back to full on bloggyness, next month. 

Until then I will leave you with these piccies.

Deeanna 

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