Out and about part deux.

 Hey there!

A week ago, more pick ups at the auction house.  Hooray, new bed sheets! Also a trip to a grocery store and another trip to Costco. Same outfit as before. Costco was uneventful but when I went to the register, the very conservative male cashier asked if "person named on card" was here. I replied, yes I am!

It wasn't a solo trip, oldest kid accompanied me.  We stopped at Ulta beauty, too.  I needed something to tint my brows to better match my favorite red wig.  We talked to a customer assistant in the store and I interacted with her. We got a brush on product that should be a better match. 

It was a very positive experience.

It's getting comfortable to be out as Heather. Next weekend, we have a three day Heather schedule. Friday night is the Las Vegas Pride Parade. Saturday is the Las Vegas Pride event. And Sunday, we're going to the Renaissance Faire.  

It's going to be fun.

I'll surely share all the details from the weekend!

Heather.

Follow up and more!

 Hi  friends!

Yes, I went to Costco last Saturday. Sunday morning arrived and I needed a few things that I didn't want to buy in a super-sized Costco package.  I put on the same clothes from the previous day and went to my local grocery store.  The only difference was that I chose to wear a wig instead of the cap.  Yes, I've gone shopping to this local store en femme during Halloween outings and even gotten my flu shot three years ago on one of the trips but never had done so on a mundane Sunday in September.  Again, totally uneventful and absolutely wonderful.

In my recent posts, I mentioned the auction house.  They handle "online returns."  Mostly Amazon but some other e-commerce retailers too.  

I've gotten some very nice clothes, some leggings, nylons, tee shirts and lots of bras from these auctions at excellent prices and my spouse and I have gotten some great deals on household items, cat food and cat litter.  The clothes mostly have been for under $5 per item.

When I traveled to see my family, I'd worn my largest pair of breast forms and taken three sets of breast forms for daily wear and sleeping.  Upon opening my suitcase, I discovered that my "A" cup forms had ruptured. Luckily they were in a plastic bag so there was no contact between the gel filling and my clothing.

I ordered two sets of replacement forms, one set of "A" and one set of "C" cups.  I usually get about 6 months of daily use from a set before the fail and I've been using the "C"s since last December.  When I got home from my trip, I'd looked at the auction items and discovered "returned" breast forms up for bid. Searching a bit more, I discovered silicone breast plates for sale.  I'd never bought anything like this because I didn't know how they'd fit my ample frame.  I took the plunge and bid on a set of  Vollence "strap on" breast forms and two silicone breast plates.  For about $30, I have three new items.  My spouse picked up the auction items yesterday.  The two sets of forms I'd ordered earlier were about $80.

I'm going to share what I learned from spending $30 on fake breasts. Reminder, these are all e-cmmerce returns and have no original packaging, care instructions, information regarding the manufacturer or original seller. Sometimes the auction listing is the generic page title showing every combination of product sold in the listing.  Multiple "skin" color choices and sizes offered by the seller. I washed each set in my sink with a biodegradable non-detergent soap and hand dried them with a clean towel.  FYI, DON'T wear these vest style breastplates if you don't have someone around to help extricate you from the breastplates!  It was funny, when we were trying to remove them

First item: "Vollence Strap on Silicone Breast Forms Fake Boobs for Mastectomy Crossdresser" product review.  This set has a pair of large circular breasts with bit of a collar.  The breasts are fairly close together.  They almost look like they're too close together.  Adjustable clear straps extend from the sides of the breasts and from the shoulders crossing the back to secure.  The "flesh" tone is a golden tan. The nipples are soft and elevated but not ridiculous.  The surface is very smooth and glossy but the smoothness shows some wrinkles.  I don't think I'd be able to wear this set in public if their neckline were visible.  Who knows how long they've been sitting smooshed in a shoebox on a pallet inside a warehouse. If I had purchased them at retail and received what I got yesterday, I'd return them for a refund but for pennies on the dollar, I'm satisfied with them. I may be able to wear them under a tee shirt or certainly under a turtleneck.

Second item: "ARRIZE Silicone Breastplate Crossdresser Breasts D Cup Realistic Breast Plates for Transgender Drag Queen" product review.  Prominent nipples angled nicely. The breasts are close together.  Super stretchy and it seems to have enough stretch to fit me but this one is tight. The neck was pretty constrictive. With assistance, I was able to get this set on and it took plenty of effort to remove.  I'm certain that it will be the only time I'll wear this.  

Third item: "Silicone Breastplate" Yup, that and one photo is all the auction listing showed.  No idea of what kind of pig in a poke was coming.  The breasts are slightly smaller than the other breastplate but this one has more stretch and is much more comfortable.  This breastplate has very prominent and firm nipples which are odd and angled outward.  The breasts are closely placed.  I was able to put this on without assistance, removing was another story.  

 

Fourth item: "CeesyJuly Womens Shapewear Butt Lifter Padded Control Panties Body Shaper Brief SIZE XXL"  2XL is for a 24" waist. I'm fairly certain that the circumference of one my thighs is close to 24"  It's tiny.  I don't think I had a 24" waist when I was in high school! Maybe a 29 but 24? No way!  Too small to review!

Fifth item:  "Defitshape Women's Padded Seamless Shapewear Panties Hip Enhancer Underwear Shaper Shorts 5x"  It actually fits. It actually pads my hips. It has nothing for the rear, just the sides.It isn't the most comfortable garment to wear though.  I think it'll work very well along with the item below.

Sixth item.  "Women Hip and Butt Enhancer, 4 Removable Pads Panties High Waist Trainer Shaper Size: 3XL"  It's a bit uncomfortable but it fits and adds padding in places I need some extra help.  

Hope the coming week is nice

Heather

Quick message.

 Hi friends!

Today is Saturday, September 10, 2022, and I just got back from a trip to Vegas. Picked up great items from our favorite auction house, stopped to see my two kids and their Mom, went to Costco and then did another auction pick-up.

As we left town, it was starting to sprinkle.  Here I am wearing a white tee shirt and thin cotton skirt, "Oh jeez, raining out and I'm in a thin white tee-shirt" I whine to my spouse.

Yes, I did all of the things above in a tee and skirt.  Not a single person called me "sir" today.  This is my first outing in Vegas fully dressed up during the daylight hours where I wasn't going to some event with a costume or LGBTQ theme or one where I didn't have a backup plan with male(ish) clothes and no kids along for moral support.. I wore a white shirt, pink/purple/white skirt and pink cap. Take me as I am, world!

Today was a good day.

Yes, there tales to be told from my traveling to see my parents that will be shared in the future.  

Heather

Hot August Nights in Reno. Riding trains in Carson City, Virginia City, car shows and a a full weekend out and about.

 HELLO!

Yeah, I meant to shout. Yell it from the mountaintops.

My kids and I drove from Vegas to Reno last Friday.  We drove through the same storm that flooded Death Valley National Park. I chose to drive down to Vegas to meet the kids as we had won a large number of interesting items at the auction and they needed to be picked up. In my last rambling, I'd stated that it was going to be a full weekend in girl mode. 

It turned out to be a FULL WEEKEND IN GIRL MODE filled with human interactions and amazing experiences.  

Starting out, driving from home to Vegas with a stop at the auction. For the drive I wore the new polka-dot dress that had been picked up the previous weekend. It looks really good on me.  I am really considering this dress for my Halloween outfit.  I met the kids at their house, unloaded the van of the many new items and we loaded their stuff in.  Heading out of Vegas, we made a quick stop at a McDonald's. I was driving and I was the one at the window interacting the drive-up person. 

I drove north where we encountered the only construction are along our route, we sat for about ten minutes. Our first rest stop was in Goldfield, NV.  The ladies room was much cleaner than the mens room.  It was there that we changed drivers, youngest kid drove the rest of the way.  Next stop was in Tonopah, NV to put some gas into the van and food in our stomachs.  FYI, the Tonopah Burger King was not great. Their drive-up was very slow.

Thirty minutes after entering the drive-up lane, we got on our way. Kid drove through to Reno. We arrived at our chosen hotel.  We parked in the parking garage and found our way to the registration desk.  It was a busy Friday night at the Circus Circus Reno since the Hot August Nights classic car event was happening. It was a challenge for me and my fear of being in public in a dress. It was exhilarating.  

Saturday morning came and we did breakfast at Einstein Bagels, my outfit for the day was a black & white floral print sleeveless dress with a light sweater for sun protection.  Our first adventure stop was the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City. While there, I used a certificate for free admission to the museum, the only catch was that I had to show photo ID to use the pass.  I flashed my ID and the certificate to the person behind the desk, his eyebrows raised when he saw the name on the pass, my ID and my outfit. There are amazing exhibits at this museum and the admission is only $8.  I remember watching a piece about one of their pieces of equipment, the fully restored McKeen Motor Car, being rescued from usage as a storage shed and plumbing company office.

My oldest kid arranged for passage on their excursion train.  The 1905 Baldwin Ten Wheeler, Number 25 pulled us around the grounds three times. The locomotive was having air pump problems and had to stop at least once per time around the property to build brake pressure. Hey, the thing is 117 years old and she was having a moment.

After our ride, we piled into the van and headed up to Virginia City, NV.  And I mean UP.  What a climb into the hills. We arrived at the Virginia and Truckee RR just as the second to last train was about to depart. It was too late to ride so it gave us time to explore the gift shop and check out the static exhibits before riding the day's final excursion. Two steam trains ridden in one day. the 1906 Baldwin 2-8-0 Number 29 took us on the out and back.

The conductor told the tales of the mines along the route and some of the history of the Railroad. In a way, it was a bit of the normal "small town" bashing of Californians. Asking if CA residents had to pay taxes when they crossed the Nevada border. Virginia City is in Storey County, NV which is a very red place. About 66 percent Republican. Not as conservative as Nye, County which is about 69 percent Republican.

On the train, we sat across from some allies. My youngest has a denim jacket with many LGBTQ patches and pins.  The folks across the train asked to see the jacket and my kid obliged and told of some of the pins and patches.  We all talked both on the train and a couple times after our ride.  It was great!

After riding, we drove into Virginia City where we found a craft fair in it's final minutes. We stopped and checked out some of the vendors. Kids found some neat stuff before the fair closed.  

We piled into the van and headed to our second night's accommodation in Carson City, delivered our belongings to the room and piled into the van for the trip back to Reno   We stopped at an IHOP for dinner and had some amazing interactions with the restaurant hostess and our server. To Reno and finding a space for the van without having to walk too far.  In the parking lot of the Atlantis Hotel, was a show and shine. We walked in to the lot and followed the sidewalk to the reviewing stand where the classic cars were coming right to us  for the cruise event.

There were about six rows of the parking lot filled with classic cars.  The usual mix of abundant Camaros and tri five Chevys, El Caminos and Mustangs and old Mopar. There were a handful of oddball cars, rat rods, customs, chopped, lowriders with amazing paintwork and some survivors. I prefer the oddball car.  It takes guts to restore a '69 Torino or AMX or International Pickup instead of a car that almost every repair or replacement part available "off the shelf."

Sunday morning, we stopped at a McDonald's for sustenance, got fuel for the van and headed south for the return trip.  Halfway home, we stopped again in Goldfield to check out Goldfield Days. All the main events had ended but we went into a couple stores, visited the Chamber of Commerce's booth, used the facilities and drove toward the edge of town. But... before leaving... we went to the "International Car Forest of the Last Church."

It is like the Car Henge art installation or the Cadillac Ranch in Texas but this place uses former school buses planted at a 45 degree angle and stuck into the desert among other cars planted around the forest.  For me the challenge was driving around the place in the van and not taking risks with our vehicle.  There are different levels of the art installation, I started by heading toward the upper area thinking there would be a loop road connecting the different levels.  Wrong!  We drove by the few upper vehicles and aforementioned angular school bus and I see some paths leading down but think "I cannot see what is ahead and I'm not wrecking our car just to look at a bunch of already wrecked cars.."  So I turns around and go back to the obvious roadway leading to the lower area with the bulk of the art cars.  It was pretty fun trying to figure out what each car was before it got planted. Subarus and a Pinto and a last generation Roadmaster sedan with the roof painted in the trans flag colors and "trans pride" across the flag and what was probably a Chevy milk truck with a mid sixties Buick limo on it.  Each of the vehicles had some kind of art painted on it.  I was more interested in the cars than the artwork but I do have photos to check out.

It was everything a free art installation could be.

What a great weekend!

I didn't chicken out. I didn't rely on any backup plan aside from wearing shorts under day two's dress so I wouldn't reveal too much... I had the challenges of dealing with strangers and moving about in public.  I didn't panic too much and had a genuinely good time.

I think I've decided that the dress I wore Friday will be what I wear to work on Halloween.  It looks good on me and I have a strong level of confidence in it.

Thanks for stopping in

Heather

 

Ramblings. and Ramblings!

 Hi friends,

My spouse and I have been into buying and selling stuff forever. 30 years ago, we would go to auctions and buy box lots and hold a yard sale to make some side money. 20 years ago, we would go to auctions to buy box lots and sell the better stuff on eBay. For a couple years, we had a space in an antique mall where we would sell a range of crazy stuff in our 8' by 10' space. The antique mall wasn't a huge moneymaker for us.  It usually made enough to pay the space rent but it rarely brought enough to compensate either of us for spending both days working a full shift.

eBay has become an expensive site to sell on. Craigslist isn't easy to deal with the spam and bots trying to scam us. Facebook marketplace just doesn't bring results.

But... But we still monitor the sites where we used to buy. The main auction house we used has transitioned (LOL) to not selling "general estates" and the "anything or everything" in-person auctions where we could purchase huge boxes of stuff, filled with crazy, random things have gone away. That auction house is now selling online merchandise returns and online estate auctions.

The online return sales are pretty amazing. It's much like the way eBay was when it started, before every item was seemingly priced at full retail. There are deals to be had. Most of the return item auctions bidding start at one Dollar and the increments are also one Dollar. The most interesting thing is that the auction house allows returns on the return item sales if it isn't as described.

We started seriously looking at the return stuff sales at the end of last year. My spouse has figured out a way to affordably buy household stuff that we can use around the house, ground and Keurig coffee, we've gotten stuff for our cats including canned food, a couple of radios, all sorts of neat stuff. The best part though, is the clothing. For a Dollar or five, there are some great clothes we've gotten. Yesterday I picked up our 12 purchases. The listings are pretty crappy so we have to decipher what it is we're bidding on, the photos don't always show the important stuff like the size tag. This is why it's good that things are returnable if misrepresented.  I bought a bra that was supposed to be and sold as a 44C but when I opened the bag, the marking on the inside of the bra clearly said 36B. I think the most I've spent on a single piece of clothing is about $15 to buy a bra that retails for about $55. Most of the stuff I'd picked up yesterday was MINE! A gold velvet skirt and a weird black blouse that looks good with the gold skirt. An LBD with spaghetti straps. A navy dress with white Polka-dots. A black & white sleeveless mini-dress and a box of six robin's egg blue tank tops. I think I paid $7 for all six of those. There were only a couple of non-clothing items purchased, more SF Coffee Co Fog Chaser pods, waterless pet shampooing wipes and a pair of evil looking "mole killer" things that my spouse will turn into scrap metal.

My ultimate goal is to wear women's clothing exclusively. I'm building up my wardrobe to make this happen. So far pants are the hardest part to find.  It's really critical to try them on to know how they fall on my body.  Skirts, dresses, tops, underwear, leggings and socks are pretty easy to find and fit. Shoes are sometimes iffy because I have wide feet.  I have one pair of pants that I would wear but my shape and their shape weren't compatible.

Nellisauction.com in case you're wondering where I'm buying.  I don't think they will ship the stuff you buy if you're not able to pick it up at their warehouses. 

Time to ramble on about a different subject.  Travel!

Last Christmas, my oldest kid struggled to give good gifts at Christmas.  She decided to use her heart.  She made a generous donation in my spouse's name to a beloved charity. The Loon Preservation Society in New Hampshire.  She offered her mom and mom's fiancée a trip to see our son and his wife.  And for me, she offered to pay for a trip to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, NV.  We have made reservations to go up there in the near future.  We'll be taking my van and staying in Reno.  I don't know what events or attractions will be seen when we're there. I'm excited! I can't remember if I've driven through Carson City ever. I've driven from from Vegas to Bridgeport, Ca once and from Vegas to Reno for an event at Lake Tahoe once. I think I may have driven through Carson City on the return drive but it was back in 1999 and specific details about that trip are fuzzy.

The big news about this trip will be that Heather and the two kids are the only ones going. There will be no "backup plan" for me to revert to boy mode. I may not even take shorts! Skirts and dresses, only! Heck, I've got some really nice new clothes for this trip.  I'm going to have to figure out how to navigate the world as Heather for the entire trip.  It's exciting and a bit scary but since the kids will be with me, I should have no problem dealing with what may come.

Hopefully I'll be able to take some photos and share them here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heather

Independence Day

 Hello,

I was invited by my kids to celebrate Independence Day at their home for a pool party.  They were grilling some burgers and hot dogs, having a few friends from their office over and just hanging out.

I've met one of the women before, she's got a great personality.  I've shown photos to her of my kids and me when we've gone out to Ren Faire.  The other two were new acquaintances.  I don't know if my kids gave the three a heads-up or not but they told me that Heather was welcome.

I admit to being a bit nervous, being in the company of new people but it was fun.

I have a black one-piece swimsuit that I wore under my dress for the drive and when it was time to swim, I swapped my dress for a thin slip style cover-up.  My biggest fears were revealing too much because the suit didn't have much lining at the bottom front and having a fake boob fall out of the swimsuit.  Neither happened. The cover-up did its job almost perfectly, while in the water it was pretty flowy. When I got out of the water, the thing was nearly sheer.  I was almost feeling overexposed! 

After the friends left, I told my youngest that I didn't give myself an "out." I only had female type clothes with me again.  I need to build the confidence to just be comfortable in the world. 

Have a good summer.  I'll check in soon.

Transgender Day of Visibility redux

 Hi!

It's 12:05 on Friday April 1, 2022.

I'm sitting at my desk in my bra and panties.  We just got home from our regularly scheduled Thursday therapist appointment.  I went to our appointment in my pretty dress.  

Our therapist opened the door and looked at me and at first didn't recognize me. I waved and she did a double take and smiled. It felt great to be there, like really there.

Along the way, we stopped to pick up a drive thru burger. It was a great experience.

For the first time, I've been out on TDOV en femme.  

Okay, I've been up since 4:30 am. I am tired.  

Heather