Bucket List 2023

 Hello There,

    Everyone has a bucket list right? Well my bucket list probably looks a little different than your average guy LOL. I'm the kinda person that loves to always try and do new things, so I constantly find myself checking off bucket list items. That doesn't mean there aren't still aren't some big things I haven't managed to check off from my list! Figured I'd list off some of my big bucket list items for 2023 here, so I can come back in a while to see how many I've managed to accomplish this year!

Bucket List 2023:

1. Get a Bra fitting at Victoria's Secret: While I'm fairly certain of my exact bra size, it would still be nice to have a Bra Fit Expert from Victoria Secret confirm my size for me. They use a tape measurer on you right there in the store to find your size, and then recommend styles that would fit you best. It can definitely be a little awkward to get one because unless you suffer from gynecomastia, there's no real reason for a guy to be getting a bra fitting at Victoria's Secret, other than for personal pleasure (or a feeling of gender conformity for us genderfluid and transgender folks, but most people are too narrow minded to think of that). So I'm interested to confirm my bra size and for the feminine experience. I have a $20 off of $50 coupon that I can use starting in May, maybe I'll use the opportunity to finally get a bra for myself from VS.

2. Buy Myself a Wedding Dress: I devoted an entire post to talking about this, but I've been on the hunt for a wedding dress for myself for years now! There's a very specific style I'm looking for, and I'm not looking to break the bank. If you're interested in learning more about my eternal search for the perfect wedding dress check out my post where I talk about it. I've been on the hunt for years, so I'm not holding my breath to find one anytime soon, but you never know!

3. Wear Pantyhose Under Shorts in Public: It's no secret that I LOVE pantyhose, but I don't really get to wear them very often in my day to day life. Sometimes in guy mode, I'll get to wear pantyhose under a pair of pants, but it's so hot where I live it's pretty infrequent that I actually get to wear pants. I've read online however about brave people wearing nude pantyhose, either for pleasure or gender conformity, under a pair of shorts. This means that to anyone paying close attention, the pantyhose should be plainly visible. However from all the accounts of I've read of people doing this no one seems to ever get caught doing this, or at least get confronted about it. So it's something I think I'd like to try

4. Tell More People: This one is pretty easy to accomplish, I've already got someone in mind. Most of my friends that I've told have been very accepting of the fact that I'm genderfluid. Also it's great having extra people to talk to and be open with about my girly side. 

5. Try new Clothes and Styles: This is a pretty broad one, but I've gotten so comfortable with my typical choice of dresses that I'm missing out on so many different items of clothing like rompers, leggings, and sweaters! I'd also love to try new pieces of lingerie that I've never experienced like a corset or long line bra. There's a whole feminine world out there, I just need to be open to trying new things. 

6. Get Some More Costumes: Knowing me, I'm sure I'll own more new Disney Princess Dresses by the end of the year, but I'd also like a few other new costumes, because they're just so fun! I'm a massive Comic Book fan so I'd love to snag a Wonder Woman costume or Captain Marvel Body Suit. I'd also just love to get a new maid's dress since my old one was really never that great a fit for me, and maid dresses seem to be a staple of crossdresser's wardrobes LOL. Lastly I've always been a fan of cheerleaders, maybe I'll go out of my way to find a uniform for myself.

7. Keep Up With Working on this Blog: I've really enjoyed the past few months I've spent writing on here and I hope to keep up with posting. It honestly feels a little therapeutic to write these posts, it's like I can transfer all my feminine energy into writing. Even if I don't necessarily have anyone to talk to about girl stuff irl, I know I can always turn to my blog to get my thoughts out. I've got some new and interesting ideas to keep the blog fresh and interesting, so stay tuned!

8. Underdress More: Underdressing has been super therapeutic for me, and has acted as a great outlet when I've been feeling really bad gender dysphoria. I'd like to try to figure out how to do it a little more regularly, maybe assign a day of the week or something, IDK. I just feel like it'll be good for my mental health if I can keep up with doing it, so that's my plan!

9. Explore My Kinky Side: Look, so for the most part I am trying to keep this blog rated PG, so I'll just say that yes I have a kinky side, no I haven't really explored it, and maybe I'd like to. 'Nuff Said!

10. Go Out In Public: Okay, here's the big one, yes I would eventually like to go out in public fully dressed. For the longest time I never really had any desire to take a step this big but now that I am embracing this aspect of my life I think It might be time to embrace it a little more fully. I'm not looking to do anything dramatic, but I'd still like to be able to say that I have stepped out my door as a woman.

    Well there's my list, who knows how many things I'll manage to accomplish for 2023. I'm sure I'll have some interesting experiences, that I didn't even think about adding to my list happen to me. Fingers crossed I manage to knock out all ten things this year, that way I'll be all set up for a crazy 2024 LOL!

-Carly

Interested in reading about how I did on my 2023 bucket list goals? Click here!

Victoria's Secret Panty Sale

Hello There, 

    Had a great trip to Victoria's Secret recently that I wanted to tell you all about! My roommate was heading out on a shopping trip anyway, so I asked if I could tag along so I could pick up a few things. Since I was maybe planning on trying some things on, I decided to underdress with a bra and panties under my guy clothes. Went with my usual blue t-shirt bra and decided to wear my pair of pink and white stripe panties from Victoria's Secret. I got the backpack I wanted from BoxLunch, and then stopped in a couple other stores, but nothing else was really thrilling me. After my roommate and I got everything else we needed we started heading toward the exit of the mall, of course Victoria's Secret was on the way to the exit. Neither my roommate or I had any items from VS on our shopping lists, but there was a sign out front that said 5 pairs of panties for $25 so how could I resist, especially considering how comfortable the pair I was wearing was. So naturally we both found our way inside to look around.

    I took a quick look around at all the beautiful expensive lingerie and bras, and then headed straight for the panty tables. While there were plenty of styles to choose from, honestly I wasn't overly thrilled with the selection. As I was browsing, one of the store workers came up to me and asked me if I needed help finding anything. I said I didn't, and he then went on to apologize, saying that the selection was so limited because it was the last day of the sale and things had been pretty thoroughly picked through. I thanked him and he was on his way, but it being the last day of the sale definitely explained the slim pickings. It took me quite a while to find 5 that I really liked, but eventually I got there. I chose a couple different styles to do some experimenting. The five different pairs I bought are highlighted below!

Seamless Lace-Trim Bikini Panty

Seamless Hiphugger Panty (god these are comfortable)

Seamless Hiphugger Pattern Panty

Lace Waist Cotton Pointelle Cheeky Panty

Logo Cotton Thong Panty

    All the styles fit me pretty well except the Cheeky Panty which didn't have as much coverage in the front as I would have liked but nothing that isn't manageable. Also this shopping trip has totally remined me why I love Victoria's Secret, amazingly comfortable products and fantastic customer service! To those of you out there who aren't out and are looking for a safe space to shop please consider VS, I've had nothing but positive experiences shopping there! With my purchase I got a $20 off $50 coupon that starts in May so I look forward to shopping there again soon! I saw a totally cute pink T-shirt bra so I think I know what I might get!

-Carly

My Accepting Roommates

 Hello There,

    Today I'm talking about my roommates, past and present, who have known about me being gender fluid. For those of you reading who don't have any people in their lives who know about your gender identity, find a friend to tell. I can not express how gratifying it has been to be able to be myself around others, even if it is only an extremely small group of people.  I know it can be scary but as long as you choose someone trustworthy who you know will be accepting of your true self, you'll find yourself someone safe to tell. Ok spiel over, onto my roommates!

    So about a year ago I was living with my parents and commuting to work. It was about an hour commute, but on the plus side I didn't have to pay any rent. I was saving up to buy a house so I was pretty keen on not having to pay rent. While I lived with my parents I really wasn't able to express my gender identity, but I kept telling myself that I had to tough it out to save my money. However once I got to a reasonable amount saved, I was finally a little more open to moving out. Additionally, at the time I had some family drama going on and gas prices had just exploded, so I knew now was the time. Fortunately one of my coworkers had long needed a roommate, and had been asking me to move in with her. Something that had always made the prospect of living with her interesting to me was that she was a member of the LGBTQ+ community, so I had a feeling she would be accepting of the fact that I was gender fluid. Well when the stress of living at home came to a head, I finally agreed to be her roommate. But before anything was set in stone I wanted to tour her town house, and then inevitably come out to her and gauge her reaction. The town house was nice and my room was fairly large, with a large walk-in closet and private bathroom. She was kind enough to give me a reasonable price for rent since we both knew I would only be living there short term while I pursued a job in another city. Once we had agreed on a price the moment of truth came, I had to let her know that if I was going to live with her she was going to have to keep my secret. So I cued up a picture (the one shown) and told her I was gender fluid. She was visibly shocked, but then was like "right on", and she promised not to tell anyone.

    I spent about 6 months living there and it was wonderful, I got to express my gender identity whenever I wanted! I could cook dinner in a dress, or lounge on the couch in a nightgown, and my roommate acted like it was totally normal. For my room I chose a set of pink satin sheets, and in my bathroom a pink towel set, it was a total pinkout lol. I had several large photoshoots which added to my photo library, and started writing this very blog! But alas all good things must come to an end, I finally got the job offer for my new job. Like I talked about in my moving post, I had to get everything in my closet packed up and ready to go. It was definitely sad moving out both because I was going to loose my freedom to be fully gender fluid, but also because I was leaving the company of a great roommate.

    Thankfully one of my friends and coworkers from my previous job also had just gotten hired at the same facility as me, and we decided to be roommates at a new apartment together. Given that she is friends with several gay men and my previous roommate, I figured she'd be accepting of a gender fluid person. I decided to come out to her, to add to my list of people who know my big secret. Sure enough she was super accepting of me, to quote her exactly "you just got so much cooler" lol. Unfortunately for me though, to save money on rent we are living with a third roommate who I have decided not to come out to. It's not that she probably wouldn't be fine with it, It's just that she seems a little to immature to empathize with what it means to be gender fluid. Additionally she seems like a little bit of a gossip, so I'd rather not risk her letting my secret leak to the world. So while I still have someone to talk to about being gender fluid, I'm not able to present as a girl whenever I want, at least for the time being. I think me and the roommate that knows both agree that if we live together again next year, our third roommate will be getting the boot. So who knows hopefully I'll be able to be out and about in my home as woman again soon enough!

-Carly

My Eternal Search for a Wedding Dress

 Hello There,

    Like most of us girls out there, I have some items of clothing on my bucket list that I just have to own. On my list, the item at the very top is a wedding dress. I'm a fan of long gowns, satin, and formal wear, so a wedding dress checks a lot of boxes for me lol. Now admittedly I don't really have a use for a wedding dress outside of just enjoying wearing it and taking pictures of myself wearing it, but just because my use for one is limited doesn't mean I'm not always on the hunt for one. Unfortunately there's been some challenges on my road to wedding dress ownership, which means that I've been trying to find the perfect one for years now! 

    The first problem I've been facing is price. Like I mentioned earlier I don't really have many uses for a wedding dress so I'm not really willing to invest a huge amount of money into one. My personal budget for one is around a maximum price of $150, but I'd only pay that high a price for the exact style of dress that I want. Unfortunately used dresses usually sell for quite a bit of money, sometimes upwards of $300, which is way out of my price range. I usually do my shopping on Ebay, Craigslist, and Facebook marketplace, I find that these sites usually have the most reasonable prices. But not only has it been a struggle to find a dress in my price range I also need to find a dress in my size. So even though I may find a dress that's a great price it probably isn't my size. If I plan on spending a such a large sum of money on a single item, I better be damn sure it fits.

    The final problem I've been having is that I'm looking for a very particular style of dress. Speaking honestly I think modern wedding dresses are super boring, they all look really similar and are simple in terms of design. I realize that a simple design is so that the dress does not overshadow the beautiful bride wearing it, but I ain't a bride, so I'd love the dress to stand out! I'm therefore looking for a more old school dress, something a bride in the 80s or 90s might wear. In terms of the exact features I'm looking for on my ideal dress I'd like: puff sleeves, long sleeves, beaded and lace detailing, I'd like the material to be mostly satin, and I'd like a large bow on the back. I know that's a lot to ask for, but again if I'm going to spend a large sum of money on one of these dresses I'd like it to be perfect. Additionally I recognize that the type of wedding dress I'm looking for is pretty old school and would be considered garish or ugly by modern brides, but it's just my personal preference. Check out the photos below to see the sort of dress styles I've been looking for.

    With the combined factors of price, size, and style, I've really been looking for a needle in a hay stack unfortunately. I've spent years looking for my perfect wedding dress and I haven't tracked it down yet. Hopefully I'll track one down soon, but more than likely my eternal search will continue. You'll certainly know when I finally find one, I'm sure there will be several blog posts about it. Oh well, until then at least it's fun shopping for them online lol.

-Carly

Disney Princesses Pt. 2!!

 Hello There!

    I promised I'd be back to talk more Disney Princesses didn't I?! After writing my first post on them I got all fired up and just had to talk about them again (plus I needed an excuse to go out and buy some more princess dresses). So yes spoiler alert I added some new princess dresses to my collection, but before we get to that I wanted to touch on another princess related topic first. So sit back, get your poofiest princess dress on and enjoy!

   Before we get to all my latest acquisitions I wanted to talk about my biggest inspiration behind my love of Disney Princesses: The Disney Parks Princesses. These are by far some of the most gorgeous women you'll ever see, embodying everything that makes femininity so great: kindness, beauty, and grace. One can not help but be mesmerized by them with every photo they're in. But not only are they beautiful, they're hair, makeup, and dresses are all on another level. No cosplayer has ever managed to perfectly recreate the magic that is the dresses of the Disney Park Princesses. While I've certainly enjoyed doing my own versions of these characters, there's really just something otherworldly about what they manage to pull off. I figured I'd share some of my favorite photos from my collection bellow for you all to enjoy. Additionally here's the link to a great Flickr group where thousands of these photos are posted.

    Hope you enjoyed those! I have plenty more that I can post, maybe I'll do featured pages for each princess hmmmm... Anyway, now on to my recent princess acquisitions. One of the things I discussed in my original princess post was how my love of Disney Princesses made me feel youthful. So to piggyback off that feeling something else that feels youthful to me are a cute pair of patterned pajamas, like a little girl might wear. I've been on the hunt for the perfect pair of princess pajamas for years now and haven't come across anything just right yet, until recently! I found a pair on amazon featuring 4 of my favorite princesses in their iconic gowns: Belle, Cinderella, Aurora, and Rapunzel (No Ariel unfortunately to complete my top 5). Not only did it feature most of my favorite princess, but it was also pink! How could I resist?! So of course I bought it, and it fit like a dream, very comfortable too! Now I can get my beauty sleep with Sleeping Beauty dotted all over me LOL.

    Since I ordered something cozy to sleep in I figured I also needed something to keep me warm. I'm sure you remember my Disney Princess room from my last post, with all my Princess blankets, well since I don't have any of those anymore I was in need of a new one, and the one I found on amazon again had 4 out of 5 of my favorite princesses, this time swapping Rapunzel for Ariel. It's super soft and just oh so cute!

    Ok and now for the moment we've all been waiting for, My new princess dresses!!! So when it came to ordering new dresses, I first of course had to choose which princess I wanted to add to my collection. Now I already had Cinderella and Snow White, and had previously owned Belle. While I would certainly like to upgrade those dresses to nicer versions, I for now wanted to focus on Princesses' whose dresses I had not yet worn. That being said I totally used this blog post as an excuse to re-wear my Cinderella and Snow White Dresses so I could take new photos in them!

    Onto my new dresses! The first princess I wanted to add to my collection was Aurora. Her pink dress is absolutely to die for (sorry blue dress fans, pink is better). However, one unfortunate problem with her dress I've found is that costume companies make them either too elaborate or too expensive. Her dress is sleek and simple, you'd think It'd be easy for costume designers to nail it, but they really haven't. I went with Leg Avenue's Version of the dress because it was reasonably priced and came fairly close to the original design. But OMG let me warn you it was an absolute glitter bomb! There was heaps of gold glitter all over my room so buy with caution! Otherwise the dress was soft, fit ok, and had great color. I'm still on the hunt for my perfect Aurora dress but this will have to suffice for now. 

    For my next dress it was an easy choice: Rapunzel! For the longest time I wasn't a fan of Rapunzel's dress, but it has recently really grown on me. It has a bunch of features that make women's clothes so fun: Lace, Floral patterns, Satins, and it's Purple! Not only did I fall in love with her dress, after watching Tangled a few times Rapunzel quickly became one of my favorite princesses! I also had to bust out a frying pan to replicate her iconic weapon.

    I've also got one final surprise, after writing my first post I was really missing having a Belle dress. Since I was planning on re-wearing my other two princess dresses during this photoshoot anyway I figured I just had to get my hands on another Belle dress again. I was fairly happy with the quality of the last one I purchased, so I went ahead and bought another one, also because it was a good price. The dress still feels magical to wear, and I'm glad I got to take pictures in it with my modern makeup skills.

That's about all I've got for you in this Princess update post. Expect a part three! Like my first post this one has inspired me to go out and get more princess things so I'll be back for more. Also after combing through all the pictures I've saved of Disney Parks' Princesses, I'd love to share more with you so I'm tempted to do featured posts on single princess. If I do that it also may give me an excuse to buy new versions of some of the princess dresses I already have. Who knows, stay tuned for more I guess!!

-Carly