Passion Fruit from Trinidad and Tobago

It gives me great pleasure and happiness to introduce to you -- if you have not discovered her blog as yet -- artist Brianna McCarthy who hails from the lovely region of the West Indies, and more specifically from Trinidad and Tobago.
She is an amazing artist who appears to focus on portraits of women, and what is so remarkable about her work is that instantly you know these are West Indian women, even without being told. I think it is fascinating that she achieves this as she does not produce West Indian women in the typical way. She presents them more ethereal, thoughtful and pensive than I have ever seen them before. But I'll just shut up now and show you some of her artwork, for I think it speaks for itself.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these images. They are all the property of Brianna McCarthy.

So that's the blog I've been really feeling lately. Its nice to see us West Indian women depicted so sensitively and delicately. If you are also impressed with this young talent make sure to check out her blog here.

Hey, garcon! More salt and pepper at table six, please.

For awhile now I have been obsessed with all things Salt n' Pepa. I think their style was fresh and fun and thanks to them I am now obsessed with gold hoops and tight cropped shirts. However, its not really within my personality to bear my stomach, so lately I've just been watching old Salt n' Pepa videos with the intention of living vicariously through them. I do like that the cropped shirt style has made a comeback, but I've noticed that they are looser than Salt n' Pepa's uber tight ones. In any case, I'm not one to bare my midriff. I wouldn't say I'm a conservative dresser, but that's one area that I have never felt compelled to reveal. So when I do buy a couple cropped shirts, I'll wear it with a very high waisted pants. Urkel style! Ha!

Anyway, here are some of my fave pics of Salt n Pepa

 Aren't those over-sized gold hoops great? I love gold hoops and I do have large ones but I have thinner, wide ones, as opposed to thick, big hoops. However, Salt rocks the thick ones here!

Salt, Spinderella and Pepa look great in this colour because orange is a great colour for rich complexions... Actually its a great colour for every complexion! ...Unless you're a redhead, in which case, this colour could clash quite badly...

 Okay, okay.. one style I will admit should stay in the 90's is the plaid beret. And pants-skirts. That I will admit. Not a fan of either. In fact, I think the only person that ever could wear them simultaneously and pull it off is Salt. She was my fave member as well. She was fierce!

I can't think of a better colour than black. Wait, hang on a second. *Ponders*. Nah, there's nothing better. Black will always be the new black.

 Well, that's it. Salt n' Pepa is one of my fave fashion inspirations, just for the irreverence and wackiness of it all. (Gotta love the 90's.) When I do incorporate ideas from their style, of course its never the whole look but just elements like hoops or cropped shirts. Who are some of your fashion inspirations and what are some of the elements you draw from them?
I'm really excited to know. I already know someone is gonna say Anna del Russo or Rihanna or Alexa Chung. I feel it in my bones! :)

What the Frugality Game Taught Me

Source

Being the cheesy writer at heart that I am, during the frugality Game I kept thinking of an equally cheesy blog post I could write about to tell my followers how simply saving money changed my life in more ways than one. However, I kept telling myself that would be entirely too cheesy and I reckoned no one would care. That is, until someone commented saying that I would be surprised how this game would help in all areas of my life. Why, by George, I thought, that’s exactly what I was thinking! So here is your extremely cheesy blog post, and you can thank Joy for it.

1.       The Frugality Game helped me in being less self-centred:

The thing about being a shopaholic is that if you’re not careful, you can become very self- centred. While I did not become quite as self-centred as I have seen others become, I did become self- centred enough to start to dislike this trait that was emerging in my character. I had noticed that in all my conversations I would talk endlessly about this great blouse I found on sale, how it fit me so well, what hair style I would wear with it.  Or I would go on endlessly about this great lipstick I bought, and how it contrasted so well with my dark skin and hair. Every conversation seemed to revolve around my purchases and how I was (supposedly) benefitting from them.

And the thing was that while I would sometimes buy stuff for family members or friends, most of what I bought was for myself. Therefore, not only was I senselessly spending money on stuff I didn’t need, but I was also senselessly focussing way too much on myself. Now the shopaholic era is over I have found myself becoming more interested in other people’s affairs and less on myself and my expenditures.

2.       I have more money.
       

Shopping landscape of the Caribbean

 Fashion landscape of the Caribbean, and how different shopping is on a whole.

Source

I live in the Caribbean, and understandably, everything here is quite different to other more metropolitan countries such as the U.S.A and England, which have huge cities such as New York City and London. That is not to say that my region is not developed. It is, very much so. I hasten to make this point as I have been told stories of well- meaning tourists who were surprised to find we have wi-fi, multi-lane highways, and a very highly-rated educational system. However, in some aspects, the Caribbean is a wee bit behind. I mean, of course, in terms of fashion shopping. (You didn’t think I would tackle a serious topic, did you? I am the fashion-obsessed Misnomer after all. J ) 

Five things you didn't know about the Misnomer

Source

First things first, I know that I've been a bad, bad blogger. I haven't posted in ages, due to a mixture of unforeseeable circumstances, a heavy workload and bad time management. Anyway, excuses aside, I'm really sorry. And knowing I really couldn't put off posting very much longer, as my last post is soon facing its one month anniversary, I decided I really needed to post something, in hopes that my thirteen followers can find it in their hearts to forgive me.

So here we are. I've decided to do one of those 'Five things you don't know about me' that everybody gets annoyed by, but can't help reading. 

Five Things You Didn't know About the Misnomer

5. I wear thick, red-framed glasses that you may never see me wear as not only am I trying to be enigmatically anonymous here, but they are also kind of unattractive. I only wear them to uni and at home.

4. I have an unhealthy interest in pictures of people smoking cigarettes, although I don’t smoke myself.

Frugality Game: Final Episode: The Dog Days are over!!!

The Frugality Game is over guys!!! And I have a surprise for you! : I WON!!!
I know I didn't think I'd win, in fact I was pretty sure I would end up coming second after Jackie but let's just say that Jackie hasn't been quite as transparent about her spending as she should have been. (the sneaky wench. Haha!)
Now if you remember, at the start of this game, it was my sister Jane who was all gung-ho about playing this game because she was certain she would win. She was so excited in fact that she created a spending log sheet on which we each had to fill in exactly how much money we spent every day. Now I and Jane had been faithfully filling in our purchases every day, but Jackie got kind of lazy with keeping track of her purchases, and that is why Jane and I thought she was not spending any money at all. But it turns out that she has been spending money. And quite a lot of it at that.
 I only discovered this recently when I had lunch in my favourite restaurant with my sisters. I was begging Jackie to at least give me an estimate of the little money she had spent for my blog. But she kept brushing me off. Finally I said "well, I've spent more than $300, you don't have to tell me exactly how much you spent, but just tell me if it's more than $100, or more more than $150..."
She laughed derisively. "Trust me, I've spent way more than that."
I dropped my fork into my chicken alfredo. "You have? ..Exactly how much more have you spent?" I was starting to get a bit excited, but I was trying to hide it for her sake.
She sighed dramatically. "Well... I had to buy a lot of things this month for the apartment. And then there is gym membership, your birthday present, these clothes I just bought. And lots of other stuff. And that's just October. I spent so much money at the end of September that I don't even want to talk about it. In all, from the end of September till now I'd say I've spent about... more than $600."
"What? I can't BELIEVE you!" I said in an admonishing voice, though I was grinning from ear to ear. "I mean, honestly, I've been telling everyone on my blog that you've been so financially prudent, and that I'm proud of you and this is how you repay me?"
She had the grace to look ashamed and started wringing her hands. "Well, it's really, really hard to save you know."
I was reminded that I'm a shopaholic too and I know how hard it is to save, and I felt sorry for her. "Well don't worry. Even though the frugality game is finished we'll still keep trying to save, and eventually we'll get there, right?"
"I have to get there. I'm broke. Don't expect a Christmas gift from me, kid." She joked.
"Haha, you're funny...You are joking...right? right????
She just winked and said she had to go.


So that's it folks. I've WON!!!! I'm so happy. I didn't even realize yesterday was the 21st till my friend mentioned it and then I started freaking out in the middle of the cafeteria. But I didn't even care. I made it guys. Thanks to the fantastic followers who read along and/ or commented on each post (thanks especially to Zabrinah, Isabel, and E.)
So it'll be back to regular programming from the next post. Blogging about random stuff, though I will keep you up to date with my tales of getting over my shopaholic tendencies. I'm not going to give up on myself. I'm better than I was last month, and I want to be better next month than I have been this month. I just gotta keep my eyes on the prize. And off sale racks and high priced eyeshadow.

Frugality Game: Episode 3 : I fell off the wagon.

Source

  So I may have suffered a minor setback, not really in the frugality game but in my quest of overcoming my shopaholicism. I kind of spent $40. On eyeshadow.
   I know that's not much of a financial setback when compared to the $90 I spent on my hair but that was an emergency, so I can rationalize that. But this? I don't know what I was thinking. Especially when I recall the fact that I have never spent more than $14.75 on eyeshadow. Till now.
   But let me tell you how it happened.
   I got a ride to work on Friday, and as I've mentioned before, I work in the den of all evil for a shopaholic : a mall. Anyway, to avoid being tempted by the stores in the mall, I've been getting to work exactly on time so that I have to go straight to my desk and have no time to window shop or browse in any of the other stores. But that day I got a ride to work and my ride deposited me at the mall a lot earlier than I expected. So I had some time to kill. I wandered up a staircase and ended up in the clothing store of one of my friends who we'll call V. I was proudly looking through racks of clothes without being (too) tempted, and basically I was just very smug about getting over my shopaholicism and being so frugal.