The Rainbow Collection . . .

Playful Parrots Necklace

Top: Alloy

Skirt: Xhilaration, Target

Shoes: Worthington, JCPenney

Bag: Loop, Marshalls

Belt: Marshalls

Sunglasses: Cloud Nine, Ocean City

 Splashy Seahorses Necklace

Top: Decree,  JCPenney

Camisole: So, Kohl's

Skirt: H&M

Shoes: Nine West, DSW

Bag: Marshalls

Sunglasses: JCPenney

 High Hair and Heels Necklace

Top: So, Kohl's

Skirt: Modcloth

Shoes: Betseyville, JCPenney

Bag: Nine West, Boscov's

Belt: Wet Seal

Scarf: Wet Seal

Sunglasses: JCPenney

. . . is a title that I could assign to many a post, not to mention one that would do Kermie proud.  But it seems especially fitting for this week's ROYGBIV-banded trio.  Each necklace features charms purchased from Etsy seller Bohemian Findings, a shop as full of fun as its pun of a name promises.  And there's more where that came from!  As ever, I got a little carried away with supplies and have three more kawaii-tastic creations to unveil next week.

Getting back to the post name, I almost didn't use it for fear that I had, horror of horrors, used it before, rainbows and pop culture puns being spokes in my whimsical wheelhouse. Now that I've been blogging for years, I constantly fret about that sort of thing, having not once but twice likened myself to one of those dreaded repetitive relatives who corner you at birthday parties with rehashed stories of departed pets, conspiracy theories, and other relatives who've stolen their antique gold watches, seats on town council, and/or husbands.  Although I seem to be getting better at this whole Internet thing, that is, social networking and having the tech skills to maintain said networks, it sometimes still baffles me.  Which is just one of the reasons (watch out for the sneaky segue) that I can relate to Bridget Jones in Helen Fielding's latest installment, Mad About the Boy.

Set fourteen years after Bridget and Mark Darcy get together, the novel pits Bridget against all sorts of new sticky situations, one of which is navigating Twitter.  She struggles to upload pictures, gets blindsided by spambots, and obsesses over her followers only to amass a respectable number and then lose most of them by insulting, of all things, a bird, Twitter's beloved mascot.  (Being Bridget, she ends up garnering even more followers, many of whom log on just to read of her latest mishaps.)  It's very funny, and I'm enjoying it hugely, in no small part because it makes me feel like it's okay to be more lax about life.  And also to eat more cookies (case in point, I had four today).  That having been said, the head shot of Fielding on the back cover is sophisticated and glamorous, not at all the sort of woman who would seem to be at home writing about the joys of delousing one's children or eating grated cheese straight from the bag.  The lice bit really threw me for a loop.  I thought, if Bridget can find the fun in that scenario, then I can stop worrying that every backyard BBQ is going to end with a deadly mosquito bite.  (I could've inserted a lot of neuroses there but felt that it was important to stay consistent with insects.)  In this sense, the whole book is a non-preachy illustration of that saying, "life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain."  I usually hate that one, especially when scrawled on some shabby chic plaque or embroidered on a don't-drool-on-me pillow.  But part of the reason I hate it is because I know it's true, just like I know Brussels sprouts are good for me even though I don't eat them.  Fielding makes the whole thing more palatable, serving it up with the proverbial spoonful of sugar, even at the darkest hour, say when Bridget enrolls in an obesity clinic or is forced by studio execs to turn her screenplay, which is a rewriting of Ibsen's feminist tragedy Hedda Gabler, into a comedy that takes place on a yacht.  (There's even worse stuff going on, but as a recovering spoiler, I'll refrain from going there.)  At first that part made me mad, as I didn't want "the Man" messing with Bridget's masterpiece.  But then I realized that the whole incident was a metaphor for Bridget herself and the way she turns even the bleakest of circumstances into something that is, at times, laugh-out-loud funny, emerging even stronger than she was before.  Studio exec-manipulated or not, that's more moving then some one-dimensional tearjerker, proving that laughter truly is the best medicine.

Maybe I should embroider that on a pillow, or better yet, glue it on a necklace (a really big necklace).