About Pretty Opinionated
Pretty Opinionated is a lifestyle blog for women in general and moms of school-age kids in particular. I cover topics such as great gift ideas for kids (especially boys), fun products to help make mom’s life easier, ways to care for yourself and your family, and tips to make life easier. All of my tips and how-to articles focus on practical ideas that anyone can do without having to embark on a journey to find some sort of rare ingredient or spend a fortune and weeks of time changing their entire lifestyle all at once. Take a peek at a few of my most popular categories and posts!
About Pretty Opinionated Reading List

Reading Lists

My readers love discovering new books through my extensive “what to read next” lists!
About Pretty Opinionated

Easy Recipes

When I say easy, I mean it! I’m not a master chef, so literally anyone can make my recipes!
About Pretty Opinionated

Pet Care

My pets are a huge part of my life and it shows! They love helping test out all the latest pet products!
About Pretty Opinionated

Health & Beauty

I love sharing my favorite health & beauty tips. Apparently my readers love them, too, as it’s one of my all-time most popular categories!


About Pretty Opinionated
My name is Nicole Etolen, and I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I started out with pen and paper, moved on to a standard typewriter when I was a teenager, to an electric typewriter in my late teens, and finally to a computer in my early 20s. I’ve written horrible short stories that never saw publication (and caused my mom to ask my writing instructor if I was “normal,” as if I’ve EVER been normal!) and pretty rockin’ feature-length articles that appeared in a local magazine.

I’m a mom (To an 18-year-old adult now! How the heck did THAT happen??? He was five when I started this site!), an avid reader and trivia junkie. I love learning, and have started several different degrees, yet never finished one because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, aside from a writer. As a result of my degree hopping, I have a strong understanding of psychology, basic nursing skills (I went to nursing school and almost finished the LPN program), journalism, communication, and literature. I have zero knowledge of math, however!

In addition to Pretty Opinionated, I own Middle Grade Reads, a site dedicated to sharing the best books for tweens. I also started working for Pawzitivity Pets as the editor of DogVills back in early 2022. I actually used to edit DogVills with it’s previous owner before Pawz acquired it in late 2020. It wasn’t my site, but it was one of my “babies.” So I jumped at the chance to work on it again. 

 

About Pretty Opinionated