September

 

September has been another topsy turvy kind of month for me. On balance more positives than negatives, but that's because even small amounts of activity by my femme self, can make everything seem more positive and balance out the bad stuff. 

Health And Fitness 

After hitting my 95kg weight target in July, by getting to 94.4kg, I found myself stuck at that weight for 7 weeks. Then a week ago my weight finally changed. Unfortunately not for the better. It went up to 95.6kg, so back over my recently beaten target by 1.2kg. I was very upset by that. So I made an extra effort to try and lose it. And I'm pleased to say it's worked. I lost 1.6kg to weigh in at 94kg.  So I'm back on track.

I had a bit of a health scare this month. I had some stabbing pains in the left kidney area. So I contacted my GP surgery, who asked for a urine sample to test for an infection.  I submitted a sample and I was told it was free of infection but massively high in glucose. The level was that usually seen in uncontrolled long term diabetes. Even stranger was, I had a health check at the end of last year and my blood glucose levels were fine. I was told I was almost certainly diabetic and they needed to figure out why. I had to go for a blood test. So I spent a week worrying about being diabetic or worse, as sudden onset diabetes is a symptom of some nasty cancers. I was given a follow up appointment for when the results arrived.  The night before the appointment, I went into my NHS records to find the test results on the app, and they all said they were normal, apart from slightly high cholesterol, which was actually down from last year, but down on last year's level and only just over the bottom risk level.  What was going on?  I went to the appointment and the GP was also at a loss as to how my urine sample had been so high with glucose. They had thought it was a slam dunk certainty that I was diabetic. But I'm not.  I'm fine, which I'm very pleased about.   With the cholesterol, the GP said that whilst it had improved a little, my actual risk factor of developing a cardiovascular problem in the next 10 years had climbed 2% to 12.8%. This is simply because I'm nearly a year older. Recently the NHS has changed it's guidelines for treatment of high cholesterol from 20% down to 10%. So I am going to go onto Statins to minimise the risk of developing problems.  I do need to try and make some time in my life to exercise properly. It will make a big difference to my life. But when things are difficult it seems very hard to achieve anything on that front.

Caring 

Caring for my Wife continues to be difficult. We still have trouble getting her into bed. We have just taken delivery of a hoist to try and make it easier for her. Hopefully it helps. The house is feeling more and more like a care home. There haven't been any falls this month, but a couple of near misses. It's quite stressful and I must admit it does take a toll on me, both physically and mentally. But what can we do, but keep on keeping on. I just wish we could get to some kind of stability for a while. 

Hair

I've gone blonde. I have got two new blonde wigs, although one might get gifted away to a friend. The first wig I bought was a short blonde wig, which i feel makes me look just a little too masculine. I was a little disappointed. 

 So I bought another and this one is much more suited to me. In fact I love it. I've had a lot of good feedback on my Flickr postings of this new wig. 

I'm definitely going to be wearing this wig a lot more going forward. 

Dressing 

After the frustration of a Deeanna free month in August, I was determined to dress in September  and I managed to fit in three short but enjoyable dressing sessions.  

For the first session I wore the first of the blonde wigs I had purchased. I wore my yellow satin blouse, black skirt and black Wolford leopard print tights. I teamed these with patent black t-bar Mary Jane platform shoes. I was quite pleased with my look.

The next session provided an opportunity to wear one of my new retro swing dresses with another new blonde wig. This dress is in my favourite vintage style, the Hepburn by Lady Vintage London. It's lovely cobalt blue colour. In fact the pattern is called Cobalt From The Blue. It has a lovely floral design on it. I love it. I teamed it with my frilly petticoat, some darling knee high socks with pretty ruffles at the top and my patent Mary Janes. I also wore my ochre yellow faux leather biker jacket. Sadly I noticed that the collar of the jacket is flaking away. I've had it for a few years and faux leather can be prone to this as it ages. This jacket is an essential part of my wardrobe, so I will have to replace it with something very similar.  My new wig looks amazing. I absolutely adore it. I'll be wearing this wig a lot more in future. This was a really enjoyable morning spent as Deeanna. 

At the very end of the month I took an opportunity to have a very short dressing session and chose to preview my pink rainbow Hepburn dress. I'm hoping to wear this dress for a special photo shoot that I am trying to put together, hopefully with a make up artist and a photographer, which will be on the Pink Pony Club theme. But I couldn't resist giving it a try out, while the weather is still nice enough for dresses like this. I teamed it with my frilly white knee socks and pink and white Koi Love Heart Mary Jane platform shoes. I also wore long satin pink opera gloves and pink cats eye sunglasses. A very retro look. It was a  great look. However it was a very short session. Just 90 minutes to get changed, do my make up, take photos and return back to drab mode. As I result I made a small mistake. I checked myself in the mirror and all was ok. But my dress belt had rolled and twisted. It's barely noticeable in the photos. But I noticed it afterwards and got really upset by it. It's the kind of thing I would notice with more time, and correct. But it really did take the shine off of the session. Such is the way with being neurodiverse. I did get some nice photos, so I'm feeling better about it now.

One of the biggest frustrations in my life is that I don't have time to just relax for a day, without having to worry about being a carer. Hence too many of my dressing sessions are rushed.

Collecting 

One of my favourite hobbies is collecting things from the 1970s and 1980s, especially if they relate to my past. I keep a collection of old stuff over in my dressing studio.  One of the things I collect is copies of the Christmas Radio Times and TV Times. Well this month I managed to get hold of the Holy Grail of Radio Times issues. Christmas 1977. This was year when the BBC broke the records for light entertainment viewing on Christmas Day. So I'm delighted to have this copy in my collection. 

I also have a few PDF files of old home shopping catalogues from the 1970s and 1980s on my IPad. I love to look at the old fashions of the day. I have always wanted a hard copy of a 1970s home shopping catalogue, especially one from the Littlewoods group  and I'm delighted that I managed to get hold of a Peter Craig catalogue from Spring/Summer 1975. Some of the dresses in this catalogue are gorgeous. And the lingerie pages are especially nostalgic as my Mum used to buy her corsellettes, bras and girdles from the catalogue and I began my adventures in crossdressing, wearing these items. And here they are in print before my eyes. So I'm in a haze of Playtex and Miss Mary foundation wear at the moment. Here are a few photos from my catalogue. 

I will be writing a future post about home shopping catalogues and their place in my past life, and especially their impact on my development as a crossdresser. I suspect many of us will have had similar experiences with these publications. 

Plans for October 

I'm hoping to have a few dressing opportunities in October. I'm really hoping that I can make a visit to my friend Veronica either this month or next month. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. 

Have a good October everyone. 

Deeanna 

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