Making a Match

Hi everyone,

As usual I have a number of things I would love to post about and have meant to over the past few months but haven't because of things and stuff and reasons so I thought I would combine them in one post (which I haven't written yet and will be a bit long) but there is also a new entry in my Quantum Leap series (which is long and mostly written) so I thought I would just put something up as to that effect but luckily I have something to say.

A few months ago I bought some coloured tights (red, green, blue) cheaply and today being a Bank Holiday and I'm at home so I thought I would try the red pair out but I was a little stumped as to what they would go with so I sought some answers online (it holds the answers to everything).  I came across an article by Jessica Booth on Gurl.com from 2014 which was very enlightening for example pairing a pair of coloured tights with all your neutral colours, a striped dress, a black dress or using them to give a pop of colour to an outfit. Alternatively you can just go for it with whatever outfit and see what happens. I know from experience that things just go together sometimes when you didn't think they would.

Here's the link: How To Wear Coloured Tights

The one piece of advice I really took on board was to draw a colour from your outfit. For example, when I wore the green tights I paired them with a black dress that has green bird shapes on. There's also my Lost dress (which is not named for the mystery island TV show which ran from 2004-2010 but because whenever I wear it I get lost. This is the dress I got myself stranded in London in) which has pink and light blue flowers on it so I began thinking of the combinations I could use.

So what did I go with in the end? I am presently wearing a pair of blue denim turn-up shorts, black T-shirt (with Optimus Prime on) and a black cardigan with the red tights of course (not a a bright red but more of an earthy colour) plus bright red nails. They've also gone quite well with a pair of brown faux-sheepskin boots I have and some blue trainers. Ended up going for a walk in them too which still takes a spurt of confidence.

Why?

As I said last time, there was a photo of me up on a social media site for a while and last week was the first time that I saw some of my friends for a drink and most people took the opportunity to ask me about my TARDIS outfit with question being why the hell I did it. I don't really have an answer beyond "because I thought it would be cool" or just a shrug of my shoulders and nobody pressed me on the issue. I doubt I would ever admit the truth, can't really hear the words coming out of my mouth.

I was asked if I would wear the outfit to another gathering later in the month and I admit I did consider it but first of all I would be a bit wary walking through the town up to the station dressed like that never mind central London. Of course, it does sound quite tempting to me and it might depend on the future circumstances but not this time around. As nice as my friends are, I would just be made fun of all night and the regular jokes would be trotted out (although I have had some compliments about my legs). Although I'm always looking for excuses (I would love to wear a skirt suit to work one day perhaps under the banner of 'for charity') to dress, I don't want it to be like this.

Dress Size

Ok, so as I mentioned last week I was considering buying a dress and perhaps a few more things online and I...have not done that yet admittedly but I have been checking out how to measure my dress size (or as near to as I can get I guess) so I thought I would share a couple of websites that helped me. That is after all what I wanted to primarily do with this blog; help other people in a similar situation and provide something I would have liked to stumble over growing up to make me make sense of the odd feelings I was experiencing and feel like I wasn't the only one. To be honest it was more of an inkling than a full on feeling in the beginning. I never thought seriously about something being there until later.

Anyway, websites:

1. What size am I?

2. ASOS.com guide to dress sizes

These should at least work in the UK. Outside that I'm not sure but at least it's handy to know where to measure:

1. The fullest part of the bust

2. The natural waistline

3. 20cm down from the natural waistline (hips)

Exactly how good this is for us chaps remains to be seen. I appear to be a size 18 so hopefully a bit of shopping with that in mind will help. Always nice to have a guide though rather than randomly searching through clothes racks for something that may fit.

Here's also a link to the dress I was thinking of getting on Amazon:

Ladies Belted Pleated Sleeveless Skater Dress

Hope this info helps.

Fiction

One of my resolutions this year is to do more fiction writing.

I have some friends who regularly write short stories and even publish novels online and ever since then I've been considering doing the same. Hopefully one of my stories will be published with a group of others next year too. I also hope to submit something to Rachel's Haven's own anthology series "A Little Bit of Girl Time" which is reaching its third volume soon. The first two are available now as e-books from Amazon along with the individual stories. I have meant to submit something before but time and other work has previously been an issue.

Amazon link for A Little Bit of Girl Time

When I was writing the first story I mentioned (apologies if I'm sounding a bit cagey about this, by the way) I found it a little hard to get back into the groove since I have been writing non-fiction things like blog posts, and reviews for various websites. It's funny that I never even considered all the captions (at least 200+ now) I wrote as fiction when of course they are. Not long enough to be short stories they are kind of micro-stories I guess and although they are on a similar theme, there are still many, many, many things you can do with it and I'm very proud of all the work I've done.

When I was younger I used to write fan fiction mainly. Now, most people think that fan fiction is just writing about various characters hooking up and to be honest that's what a lot of it is but I've read many wonderful stories by people wanting to write about adventures set in their favourite universes. I would recommend fan fiction to anyone as a good way to get into writing. Straight away you have a set-up and characters right in front of you. The hardest thing to do can be to stare at a blank sheet, or screen, in front of you without the foggiest about how to start. With fan fiction, you get to play in someone else's sandbox for a bit with their ready-made characters. You get to make up your own stories involving them, dialogue and bring in your own characters. There are various websites you can publish these on such as fanfiction.net. It's a good way of building confidence and once you have that then you can go on to cultivate your own ideas and characters.

Of course, this is not for everyone. I've spoken to people about this before and they've just not been able to do it. Indeed, it can feel odd writing in someone else's universe with familiar characters. It can make you feel a bit like a charlatan and not a proper writer. I know, I've felt all these things but yet I would still recommend it to writers starting out to sharpen up their confidence.

Many years ago I also had an idea for a series of books. Sadly, although I had the concept I didn't have any solid plot ideas so I've remained stuck ever since and I've further been soured on it by finding that a similar idea has already been used. However though it could still happen. I've always wanted to write a novel and in this this shiny new digital ago of e-books that is more of a possibility than it was 10 years ago.

Hopefully, this will be something good for me this year.

Couple Clothes Swap

I've just come across this wonderful website. As you know, clothes swapping is a hot idea for me and this Canadian photographer, Hana Pesut, has taken a series of photographs of couples for a project named Switcheroo. One before and one after, the after shot has them with switched clothes in the same location and with the same pose.

Hana Pesut - Clothes Swapping Couples

Hana Pesut's Blog

Here's an example:

Nice moustache, dear