End of Summer review

Last post of August here on the Dorm blog so I'm feeling more reflective  which is what most of this blog will be plus things to do with with this last week.

First off I have been taking stock of my large music and video based collection, pruning it of duplicates and of things like box sets that you might only watch once in seven years and for the reminder of the time they just sit around gathering dust.
While its true compared to their older forms such as VHS tape or Eight track tapes they are slimmer it still doesn't a lot before it gets into sizable piles growing ever skyward! There is a limit to just how many of these things you can keep.
In general outside of the one computer incident, my general behaviour and attitudes have been pretty good although between next doors antics and Grumpy's carrying ones there's been enough provocation to set me off going by my past which shows I am maturing.
If I'm getting to the point of risky attitudes and the like, then I need a spanking to pull me back and I'd sooner that happens.
My BFF has been away and will be returning by the time she reads this as she messaged me Sunday during a gap which is nice but I'm glad in a way that she's not messaging me all the time she's away because it's important for her as it is for me to learn to switch off, spend time with those that care for her while they're away and enjoy the time at the places they go.
Of course I miss her, truthfully I can think few people in my life I ever missed not being around to spend time with because she's taught a lot about life, is a person I care for deeply and has taught me things about myself even but in odd sort of way we have grown up together and are growing up as adult middles living the same sort of life.
That way of life leads me to talk about a blog that's generally not listed at middle/little places that goes back to a period where most of my interaction was at forums very much centred at adults interested in music plus the arts and gender identity topics and that was my spot to talk off forum with them.
As time has gone on the dividing line between where those interests stem from and my middle/little side have not so much blurred as it's obvious there's not a totally separate age regressed side of me, just degrees of so much so what's on it would not of been out of place in anything I'd of discussed between the ages of say 12 and 14 so in many ways it's  more a Middles blog.
That's why that blog, daytime office girl crisis has been retitled That Boarding School Girl cos it is in truth her Journal, what I'd of published then and in the same headspace now I do.
It brings to fruition my long cherished aim of the unification of my blogs each with their own focus but from the common middle/little core which know openly acknowledged.

Random reflections

Hmm I'm kind of late with this cos I was feeling muzzy Monday and generally I tend to write this blog in real time from the feelings and emotions as experienced at that moment and I'm only a bit better today so kinda bear with me.
I was watching Tuesday morning the studio ghibi anime movie - anime isn't just like 20 odd minute episodes in a series animation from Japan, it has a full length form too - "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" when a series of thoughts rather struck me of one is the sad and unpleasant  things are mixed in with the joyful pleasant ones in your one life.
Like you can't pick and chose them from whatever life you lead regardless of whither or not you actively sought  those and so imperfection is actual normal and is best expected in your life however much you may quite rightly strive toward more of the happy enjoyable things for you and those you care about.
Another was that sometimes what it is you what you do attracts attention that negates from what it is you yourself get from it and that people only want you for what they themselves get from you or in effect live through you.
I have seen this sometimes through how people attempt to put  age regression into boxes that either imply it something it just isn't or unwanted attention of a sexual kind. Sometimes more  to do with what being transgendered is with some to show you with friendship if you go their own way with what it means and pull back suggesting you're not meeting their idea of what presenting means.
Because I may not tick some peoples preferred boxes and labels pretty much refusing to go their way preferring to be honest to myself you can feel alone but I'd sooner that than feeling a hollow little faker.
I'm the kind of girl who keeps her own ball up in the air on her terms and nobody elses.

Responsible Jo elsewhere

As a number of you will be aware I do have a Tumblr (two if you really must know) and the original Tumblr that goes all the way back to  March Twenty-thirteen is the only remaining one of the batch I took out when a Lolita friend of mine suggested it.
I was reluctant as I had a bad experiences on Experience Project of things that had groupings as Dani and I had people who just latched on to us as if we were Great Teachers or Guru's for talking about fixing our lives hanging on our last words and that and it creeped me out around 2009/10.
Fast forward and I'm shocked to find I have two hundred eighty seven Tumblr followers in little/middle communities all seeing my every post in their streams with seventeen coming all in at a twenty-four hour period in Twenty-seventeen that I never asked for  nor asked anyone to really push my Tumblr other than it bring listed at DD/lg World, SN and on my main Middles Blog.
Had I of known how this Tumblr was to have taken off and how it was I was going to be using it I'd of adopted a more deliberate planned approach, the one I had on the one started May same year that got swept away by Tumblr some sixteen month ago which was really meant to be a more middles one and ironically is more like the 'new' 90% age regressed sfw 10 % non sexual spanking than the spanking based one that just didn't work out.
It feels like an awesome responsibility between fun posts to be sharing ideas around age regression with a number of minor followers being more like "Auntie Jo" than just Jo the still growing up girl that I am.
It's hard for me to accept people look up to me but I suppose it's an indication of how I am as a person that people do and in that way I'm back to being Junior Prefect in this life assuming more responsibility, being Big Sister for a community.
Greatest feeling I get being there is just to chill out while watching others learn to handle their very real life difficulties through age regression, getting better at coping with what life has left them with and perhaps being a footnote in their progress.

Playing the game at Jo's

Recently when I posted my last entry I kind of noticed two new followers, something that doesn't happen so often so welcome to one of the longest running active middle/littles blogs on the interwebs.
The focus on the life lived and one in your own way you can make for yourself as that person is one of things that makes this blog what it is although naturally this blog is very much middle/little girl centred.
In other words it's not a fantasy, the blog of one who may dream of a life but to whom it always remains so but is grounded in reality.
Thus it's not just the things I like to play with such as my dollies nor is about just what I wear or would wish to but it includes the very things that were a part of it so I may mention events, events that did form a part of currency of actual childhood at that time such as changes of Leaders and Monarchs, major events that we all watch and talk about.
Those things were and are still a part of the glue to holds us together that we have feelings we share just as much as we did when we played games or otherwise interacted with one another.
No, the thing that's not here is stuff for Big People such as political discourse, sexual content, violence (unless it affected children) and so on.
On a typical schoolday, we often talked about the former like if some leader had changed or about sports personalities as we played sports although like with dancing  most of mine were disability sports and wheelchair ones at that  too so it's hardly surprising that today in my age regressed life that when playing games like at the Sports Day picture at the top of this entry I'd do that but leave the other stuff at the door and this blog is the same.
For me, age regression is just about being me and when I sit typing this that's where each and every entry is coming from.

Thoughts from Summer LG Camp Dorm

Sometimes this blog is more in sequence with its parent middles/littles slice of life one and there times when it's not but this is the Dorm side of Summer Littles Camp 2017, the account of my six days away so is best read in conjunction with it.
One of things around the main event of that period is because we just pay for venue as 'self catering' everything that we need we have to organize and to large extent make ourselves unlike say staying a hotel complex which both keeps the price reasonable and gives total exclusive access to the building and very secluded grounds so we can for that period be ourselves with our partners, caregivers and others as littles very openly.
To that end we have a chore list to which everyone including one Joanne has to keep to unless there are truly mitigating circumstances why you cannot do your stint to help ensure everybody pulls their weight, so for example on two occasions I set up for a dinner and one evening meal although the fall I sustained from the Sports Day activity meant I didn't do the other of two allocated evening meal setting ups and set up for breakfast.
In twenty-seventeen then Jo did not just accept someone covering for her one missed chore, thanking them but made up what she did not do with no fuss or prompting.
Equally when as it was getting toward time for our midday meal during the second arts and crafts session, with people drifting away although I was in pain with my aching back, I stopped behind helping the organizer everything up tidy up.

Having been verbally thanked for helping with that being told I was a good girl for being prepared to do this, I was presented with a stick on badge (pictured) for it.
In a similar vein I helped with the unloading, collecting together when we left  and unloading on return of the many things including sports equipment that made Sports Day possible for the person who looked  after me..
My attitudes and behaviour with them was very good  which can be shown by thinks like helping in making our meal on arrival, washing up, satisfactory setting a table when we arrived and I was tired and in discomfort including making the soft drinks for when they returned with our fish and chips.
I only needed a few brisk hand spankings for inattentiveness without good reason over my underwear just to sharpen me up the odd time which is extremely good as attitude and behaviour goes.
The Jo in twenty-seventeen is different from back in twenty-fourteen, that I think is the thing that is most apparent because that what I turned an deaf ear to whilst expecting to be told to help is becoming more the one who offers or even just does things without being asked.
It is because people have cared enough to reset what they expect from me that is within my abilities as painfully obviously limited as they are to much higher standards and to hold firm to them. It also has a lot to do with their preparedness to take me in my very child-like but adult form and spank me without fail when I fell short, letting myself and them down because it has made big improvement  since they started that and I feel more proud what I am becoming because it.

Summer Littles Camp 2017

 (Picture credits: UK Forestry Commission)

As mentioned on last Monday's blog, I was away for six days on what is called a 'littles' camp although I'm more a middle and it had more of a mainly  female flavour although little and middles boys aren't stopped from attending.
Put simply they are get togethers of littles and middles plus caregivers/partners where we enjoy doing more child-like age regressed things together.
For me attending requires travelling to one of our groups members setting out on the Friday while one bus was one time, the connecting service to our rail station went AWL so I got drenched in the rain for a half hour and then needed to use my cellphone on the bus to let the person I know I'd be on the next train down which as ever is a London Midland service.
The train only takes just over a half hour with two stops before I met with them as finished off some shopping while it rained making our way to the parking lot and driving down to their spacious house.
Wearing my red sweater and green pleated skirt I did some colouring until it was time to eat for which we had had pork chops, boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes with a glass of ginger beer watching some television before getting to bed ready for Saturdays drive down.
On the Saturday we set off around ten having had cereals and tea with myself in my black pinafore dress with its "Junior Prefect" badge affixed, red and white striped tie and grey socks sat in the front passenger seat as we navigated around Dudley and Oldbury stopping at zebra crossings for people crossing the road. This was necessary due to extensive work on the road network around Birmingham that weekend before heading toward St Neots and Cambridge making quick route alterations to avoid delays so we arrived at the large property in East Anglia for two in the afternoon ready for the fun and games meeting the two people who did the booking.
Open opening the door, a series of big paw prints seemed to around the door as the theme of the event was the Gruffalo stories by Julia Donaldson and apart from unpacking our stuff with help, I helped with setting up the chalkboard where the program would be put.
I fixed myself a cup of tea, ate a oatmeal bar and got on with a bit of colouring between meeting and greeting the other people as they arrived and taking some pictures.
Most of the group upon arrival ordered and collected various foods from a well regarded Indian takeaway to eat for an evening meal but the person who took and who looks after me had decided to make something ourselves.
Yes that was a plural cos it Twenty-seventeen and actually I'm expected to do things I am capable of so I peeled the potatoes and fetched the pans, filling them.
There was a mysterious gift that I believe was from a relative newcomer that was a small gruffalo backpack outside so thanks for that.
Soon enough Saturday moved around to Sunday where I did help a lot setting up for breakfast before the morning's activities began which was Arts and Craft where I made a gruffalo themed place mat in the form of a Fox back by card for extra rigidility with my name on it and did some gruffalo themed colouring although felt crafts were an option.
Miss Green presented a most agreeable selection of salad based Black Country fayre to which having lived here in the North-west Midlands for a good while I was most familiar with complete with beef dripping cooked British Chips for our midday meal.
The afternoon was a traditional British school style sports day for which I was in my yellow vest top, green PE skirt and white socks.
I took part in the bean-bag relay, rockets for softies and the sack race which was very much the final event for me as fell hard to the ground impacting the lower third of back  needing help to get up and being shaken up with it apart from suffering bad back pain with bruising.
There was archery and few other events but I was pretty much out of it by that point with people especially Caroline keeping an eye on me and also it meant I needed to rest so she and Kelly set the table for the evening meal which was my 'chore' so this is a good a point as any to thank them specifically and everyone else for their concern for my welfare.
Curly made a scrumptious beef stew with dumplings (potatoes were an option too but  I passed on that feeling off) and a meringue with a fruit topping which was very enjoyable.
Jillian laid on in the evening a general knowledge quiz which was entertaining and enjoyable too that Karla and Caroline won.
Miss Green concluded the evening by reading in the easy for some of us to follow black country accent the first Gruffalo story.

Upon Monday morning after breakfast we had some more arts and crafts so I opted to draw a picture of a friendly monster rabbit, make a Jack o' lantern and colour a picture although others did more crafts stuff and we all submitted our monster based pictures into a competition with Alice winning first  prizing and second and third respectively going to Daisy and Sammy.
Karla and Caroline  had put together a amazing gruffalo themed lunch with table settings to match with sandwich rolls, sausage rolls , pork pies, chicken legs and much salad. To top it they even made gruffalo themed cupcakes. Mouthwatering!
As it was going to soon Sally, Kelly and Suzy's birthdays signed cards were presented and birthday cakes bought to share.
After a period to let all that wonderful food go down, in the afternoon the Gruffalo Games started with a gruffalo version of the British childhood game British Bulldog, a gruffalo item hunt, placing the wart on the gruffalo competition and a couple of rounds of pass the parcel which I did win a prize in and from a lucky draw of prizes I got the Gruffalo dvd.
A number of us got balloons that made a loud squeal when having been blown up the air was released which resulted in a few of us definitely acting like kids.
Our  evening meal was a Gruffalo BBQ where hamburgers, hots dogs, marinated spicy chicken cheeses and the like were on offer and the meats cooked on an actual bbq before being kept in an oven while everything was finished and as the weather was very good , we had this outdoors.
Tuesday morning was a more chilled time where a number of us went outside and played croquet, took photographs as it was quite sunny plus seeing Andi had a stash of Bubble Wands went around running with trails of bubbles following us with Sammy and  I chasing around each other with them in a most child-like way.

Later on Curly put on a dress up session were we could put on different costumes, and maybe some face paint and just pretend to be some character or other which I'm sure many of us recall doing during our actual childhoods.
Lunch was ably provided by Becky who did spicy chicken fajitas with a salad but Miss Green and myself made Oxtail soup as that was more us before resting a short while.
The highlight of the afternoon was the gruffalo themed Treasure Hunt  that was held mainly outdoors by Alice although we did had come come in due to a brief shower, something much forecast for entire time but lucky didn't really materialize. This involved looking for clues that led to others. Afterward we had Owl Icecream served in cornets that was very yummy.
Our evening meal was fish and chips with the odd personal exception like a large chicken Jillian consumed, which we had phone in our orders for earlier on and to which a driver and assistance set out by car to collect and cakes and to which I'd set the table.
In the evening as our brief shower had left we sat outside by the picnic tables where I run the music quiz with twenty-two questions with four teams to work through the printed questions covering music from the nineteen-seventies to today.
The Not a Clues won with thirteen points winning the prizes of a Jacqueline Wilson colouring book (a fine colouring book i.m.h.o) and matching top quality colouring pencils.
After a short break, Daisy, an accomplished guitarist, performed a set songs drawn from the Lindisfarne and Dire Straits songbooks and a magical version of the Pink Floyd song Wish You Were Here which was very well received.
Wednesday soon came around so after individually we'd done our own packing, which if your like me you tend to a do a bit per day we got breakfast and systematically went around tidying up everywhere, sweeping up with the help of "Henry" the sweeper checking nothing was left behind  before packing our cars ready to leave.
I helped Miss Green with our packing as we had things like the sports equipment to transport before we left just after half past ten and arrived within three hours back in South Staffordshire.
Between unpacking which at one point did leave me thinking where did I put my trusty circa 2009 Canon camera we had some left over cakes from Camp and tea.
For tea Miss Green went to a nearby village and bought fish and chips with cakes from the local Co-op store which we had before watching C.I.S and a program about the making of sweets over the centuries on the television before bedtime.
I was up at seven to do the final bit of packing by which time it had started to shower so after a cereal breakfast and tea Miss Green left to go into town and drop me off by the rail station where upon I caught the 09:54 service to our big rail station where seeing it was still showing I got into a six seater black taxi to make my way to my house for just past eleven o' clock.

I would to thank every one who both attended and contributed something to making our time away fun starting with Karla and Caroline who as organizers came up with the Gruffalo theme  carrying it through with their own contributions when it came to catering, events such as the arts and crafts and Grufallo games. Your contribution was amazing.
I'd like to thank Curly, Miss Green, Becky, Daisy and Suzy with assorted helpers for your contribution with providing a midday and evening meal and Jillian with Sally-Jane for ordering and fetching the fish and chips without which they would be many empty tummies.
We don't presently have external caterers and I would support looking more into it so people don't need to pull away from little activities they enjoy to 'big up' for food.
I'll also thank the many activity makers who laid on events such as Mr. Paul with Karla for the disco and the folks who put on games, quizzes, art sessions or performed cos having a busy varied program really helps us bring out or little (or middle) side and engage with it.
My personal thanks to Miss Green for her hospitality at GHS and looking out for me throughout the whole time cos I do have real life needs in that respect.

If doing something like this appeals it need not be on a really big scale, you could have a day or two as a 'sleepover' as a group of two or three in a flat or house putting together a few activities to share although you may feel the need to check if you have a good sense of seclusion if you wish to play very much little (such as with pacifiers etc) out of doors.

The blame game

It's not something I like to admit to being truthful but it is the case that I easily get into situations where I do blame others either for the whole of something wrong I did or excuse myself  by saying "They started it".
This I think goes back to pre teens and certainly and perhaps not unlike a good number of people who have been in Politics, I certain have done this in adult life.
In many ways  now as then faced with a blame game involving two or more with me in it, I needed to be spanked along with the others not to lie my way out of punishment and to get the just consequences of my behaviour.