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Browse published articles attributed to Noelle Nelson, with full-archive search.
Oh, that sweet feeling of falling in love! That dizzying magical enchanted feeling – that all is right with the world, and certainly with you, swept off your feet as you are. Then of course, reality sets in. He snores, leaves his clothes on the floor of the closet, and wet towels – well, that ...
You storm into the living room, where your honey sits hunched over his laptop, TV blasting, after-work-beer close at hand. “What’s this?!” you exclaim, waving a magazine at him. “Huh?” Honey replies. You grab the remote, power the TV off with a jerk. You tap your foot. You glare. He sees the magazine. Connects the dots. “Oh, that.” “Yeah, that!” you say, “Girls Gone Wild! And there’s a whole pile of these in back of the cabinet under the sink.” He smirks. “Well, you wouldn’t
You glare at your husband over the kitchen table, the family checkbook held hostage between you. “Dryer!” you snap. “Carburetor!” he retorts. “Pay down credit cards!” you demand. “Put away for savings!” he insists. And it’s like this all the time. It’s not just that you can’t seem to agree on things, you’re locked in battle royal over them. Whether it’s going hiking versus golf, seeing movie X versus movie Y, should the kids be in soccer camp or play baseball, no matter what
The kids are finally grown enough for you to feel OK about re-entering the work world, or the economy has made such a mess of your single-income life that your spouse is nudging you into “You gotta get a job, Honey,” emphasis on the “gotta,” or you’d been on disability, recuperating from that awful disease, but here you are now, as well as you’re going to get and it’s time to earn your keep. Yikes! Whatever skill-set you had is woefully outdated, the job market is a disaster,
Despite how it appears on the 24-hour news channels, domestic violence is not likely to be any more prevalent between professional athletes and their partners as in relationships in other segments of society. Domestic violence can happen to anyone at any time and does not respect age, gender, financial circumstances or sexual preference. It also does not occur in a void. In fact, there are common characteristics and warning signs that may be preludes to violence. Knowing wha
Things just have not been going well at work lately. A new co-worker is kissing up to the boss and the boss is eating it up. You can see your shot at a promotion going swiftly down the drain. Your "task list" (who comes up with these PC cover-ups for more work, anyway?) is ever increasing, and ...
You love your Smartphone, your laptop, your car’s navigational device, your programmable oven, TV, and all the rest of your modern day devices. They make life so much easier in so many respects! You can communicate with anyone anytime, by phone, by text, by videochat. You can Google all sorts of information instantly! You can compare prices online for virtually any product at any time of day or night. You can figure out which TV programs you want to record weeks ahead of time
“Compromise!” Your spouse says. “We’ll compromise! We’ll go to your folks for Christmas Eve, and my folks for Christmas Day. That way everybody will be happy – your family and mine.” Yeah, you think, everybody except me! All you want is some peace and quiet with your own husband and kids. You don’t want to be running around schlepping tired, sniveling children from one household to another. But you also don’t want to be responsible for any in-laws (yours or his) holding you
You love your extended family, you really do, and the thought of all those aunts and uncles, in-laws and parents, cousins and various spouses and children warms your heart. Until it’s time for them to descend on your home for Thanksgiving. Even if it’s just a parent or solitary in-law or wayward cousin, having to deal with relatives you see but once or twice a year can be a trial. It seems so much easier to love them at a distance! At a distance, you forget all about Aunt
If ever there was a miserable day, this is it: your six year old threw a tantrum because her favorite socks have a hole in them, your SO forgot about an early meeting, so you had to take the kids to school rushing all the way, hair still damp from your shower because who had time to dry it, much less style it . . . you got a ticket for speeding, so now you’re late to work. The boss is upset with you--you brought the wrong documents to the team meeting, you have a late meetin
The holidays are just about over, your decorations are slowly making their way back into storage boxes, the euphoria of gift-giving and receiving has given way to the mundane “Here we go, another year” where you still have to make a living or figure out how to make it through the next month, where family is still – well, family – and none of your obligations seem to have magically vanished along with the holiday music. Yes, you’ve made your New Year’s resolutions, and off yo
New Year’s resolutions are easy to make, but hard to keep--as anyone who’s resolved to get in shape, or stop smoking, or vowed to get to work early every day can attest to. The first few days are a breeze: off you jog to the gym, so proud of yourself. You toss your smokes in the trash, yippee! You get to work, a little bleary-eyed, but early enough to get a good head start on your day. All is well. Fast forward to a month later: you’re still on track, sort of. You don’t exa
Your one-and-only isn’t behaving his one-and-only self lately. He’s distracted, spends more time at work, on the Internet, everywhere but with you. He’s not that interested in being intimate – oh, he joins in just fine if you make the moves, but he’s not initiating things. You hear “yes, dear” more often tha “sweetheart.” And as you get the kids ready for school one morning, it hits you – he must be having an affair! You know you’ve gained a few pounds since the honeymoon, a
You step up to the ticket counter at the movie theater and say “One, please,” take your single ticket and sit your single self down in the darkened theater. You munch from your single-sized bucket of popcorn, sighing as you can’t help but notice all the loving couples all around you, cooing, ...
You’ve been together – oh, it seems like forever. Anywhere from six months to umpteen years. And somewhere along the line you’ve developed the Evil Eye. You know the one. That critical look you cast on your Sweetheart, that has little sweet in it and even less heart, the look that says “How can you just sit there on the couch when I’m running myself ragged in three different directions at once?” “Can’t you brown-bag it like everyone else instead of wasting money on having to
You’re in Heaven, on Cloud Nine, blissed out, and every other love-smitten cliché in the book. HE actually was the one to celebrate your first month anniversary, you practically swooned with delight. Your friends are so bored with your bombardment of “He remembered how I take my double-chai mocha-infused vanilla latte! Isn’t he wonderful?” and every other fabulousness this marvel of mankind does, that they’re sending your calls straight to voicemail. You tell yourself they’r
You were terminated from your job. Oh, how you hate that word – terminated! Why don’t they call it like it is: you were fired! Unjustly, for no good reason (other than the boss wanted a job for his new love interest), with virtually no warning. You--who gave 10 good years to the company. You of ...
You were terminated from your job. Oh, how you hate that word – terminated! Why don’t they call it like it is: you were fired! Unjustly, for no good reason (other than the boss wanted a job for his new love interest), with virtually no warning. You--who gave 10 good years to the company. You of ...
You’ve made your New Year’s resolutions, and this year you’re sticking to them, by gum! You’ve set new diet goals, fitness goals and spending – oops, make that budgeting - goals. You even have a new relationship this year, or one that solidified as the New Year began. Oh happy day, all is well. You feel energize, thrilled to start the New Year with so many good things in place. And then your new live-i Sweetheart or Spouse does something that reminds you of your ex. . . like
What if you made this Valentine’s Day more than a day about hearts and flowers? What if you made this Valentine’s Day about expanding your love, taking it beyond whatever wonderfulness you now experience to something even more amazing? It’s doable, you know. And all it takes is giving your beloved the ultimate gift: forgiveness. Your sweetheart doesn’t have to have done anything awful for you to give him or her forgiveness. Certainly, you can work on forgiving big things, b
Things are going along OK at work, you're doing what needs to be done, you think everything is hunky-dory, and then your supervisor says: "Haven't you finished that project yet? You should have started on the next one by now," and you're instantly plunged into a horrible upset. You're so ...
You were terminated from your job. Oh, how you hate that word – terminated! Why don’t they call it like it is: you were fired! Unjustly, for no good reason (other than the boss wanted a job for his new love interest), with virtually no warning. You--who gave 10 good years to the company. You of ...
You love your guy. He’s a sweetie, mellow, easy-going. He holds down a steady job and does his fair share of the chores – well, most of the time anyway. He’s good with the kids, doesn’t get too ripped on “guys’ night out” and still remembers your anniversary with flowers. You know women who would kill to get such a guy, so what right do you have to complain? You squirm. You sigh. You bite a cuticle. It’s just that . . . oh boy, how to say this? You want more in the bed depar
You’re rolling your cart down the supermarket aisle, when you bump into (literally), your friend whom you haven’t seen in – well, awhile. She asks “Where’s your husband?” and you say “Oh, I dunno – probably doing something around the house.” Your friend laughs and says “Well, I knew it couldn’t last – the two of you doing everything together.” And that stings. Because you remember when you and your mate used to do pretty much everything together – from groceries to chores to laundry to workouts.
The dog ate the cord to your laptop battery, which fortunately wasn’t plugged in at the time--who knows how many volts run through those things, your dog could have been twitching for hours--but meanwhile, you’re without your computer. You have an important presentation at work in a couple of days, so you hop on line to get a new battery, not happy to pay for express “next day by 9:00 a.m.” shipping, but oh well. Your spouse says, “No, don’t do that, I can run by the compute
You’ve been looking forward all week to watching the movie you had delivered magically to your TV, and tonight’s the night! You get comfy in your favorite chair, popco and soda at hand, and flick on the remote. About a third of the way into the movie, you realize it’s awful! You don’t like the plot, you can’t relate to the characters, the movie looks like it was shot by a computer-illiterate third grader. What do you do? You turn it off. You don’t sit there, forcing yourself
Finances are tight, you hardly go out anymore, so dinner at a restaurant with white tablecloths and candlelight is a BIG deal. You get this great coupon, finagle reservations, get yourself all dressed up (OK, so it’s last year’s fashion, or the year before, who cares), ready for a super night with your Honey. Only when you get to “El Swanky Restaurant” the hostess informs you in a frosty tone that your coupon expired – yesterday, and no, she won’t make an exception. “Next!”
You gaze at the pair of ridiculously expensive shoes you long after with unmitigated lust. . . . which will never be satisfied you sigh, for nowhere in your paycheck is there room for such luxuries. Payless will just have to do. You look at happy couples walking down the street, hand in hand. ...
You sit around the Holiday dinner table, each giving thanks for all the good things the year has brought. It may be tangible things, like the fact you still have your job, or that your spouse was able to trade in your clunker for a decent ride, or intangibles, that most of your family is in pretty good shape and you’re able to honor the Holidays together. But after dinner, as you gather in the living room to sit and digest your let-out-my-waistband meal, and Uncle Ned says “
Your day started out awful and it’s been downhill ever since. The car wouldn’t start, so you were late dropping off the kids. An accident snarled up traffic, so you were very late to work, which means late to the monthly team-building session, all eyes upon you as you attempted (unsuccessfully) to slip in un-noticed. Suck it up. Moving on. Your boss did notice, dinged you for tardiness. Your computer crashed, the tech was out to lunch. By the time your computer got fixed, y
Ah, the joy of a New Year! The endless possibilities, opportunities to set new goals, to achieve new heights! To break old patterns that no longer serve you, like nixing the danish and choosing fruit, actually going to the gym rather than just donating your membership fee as if to charity, setting small goals you can realistically accomplish instead of goals so intimidating you can’t even get started. So how about some new couple patterns? How about taking a look at some of
You cope pretty darn well with the crises and emergencies of life. Somehow you get through them, over them, and get on with life. But then there are things that aren’t crises, yet somehow manage to irritate, annoy or aggravate you every time you bump into them. Things you don’t get over because they’re in your face time and time again. You know, like that ex with whom you had the misfortune to birth a perfectly wonderful daughter who you have to “share” with him since the d
You’ve tried. You really have. You loved this man, you believed he truly was your “happily-ever-after.” You wanted this to be THE relationship of your life. When things started going downhill, you read all the self-help articles, more books than you can count, went to couples counseling together, yet still – your relationship, your marriage ended. He got up in the middle of a therapy session, threw up his hands, and said “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t,” and that was t
You’re up for that job that could be a career changer--you’re scared! What if you flub the final interview, what if you say something really stupid, what if the CEO hates your hair? You’re dating a special someone you really like. You can feel yourself falling for him/her, big-time--you’re scared! What if they’re not who you think they are? What if they have two kids and a spouse in some other state? What if they’re just in it for the sex? You and your mate have found the p
The courtroom is hot. The lawyer drones on and on. The jurors are bored. The judge is bored. His Honor’s gaze strays over to the jurors. One juror seems relatively awake. That’s because said juror is texting one-handed, surreptitiously, down by his knee. But his interested expression gives him away. The judge booms: “Bailiff!” The bailiff strides over to the embarrassed juror, who now of course can’t find the %^& off button, and confiscates the phone. The two minutes of excit
Remember the sloga “Practice random acts of kindness”? It’s been around for a long time—all the way back to 1982 or so. More often than not, it was dismissed by most folks as a cute New Age aphorism and has largely been forgotten in the years since. Certainly in our hurried, harried hyper-technological age, we hardly have enough time to accomplish our daily list, much less engage in random acts of kindness. Yet, random acts of kindness are what nurture the humanity in us, pr
You moan, you groan. Your manager has called one of his infamous “team-building” meetings, and it’s only the threat of getting fired that propels your butt out of your chair and into the meeting. What a waste! Sitting around doing departmental Kumbaya when you have piles of work marked “Urgent!” and “Rush!” on your desk. So it isn’t exactly in a mood of eager anticipation that you park your unhappy self in the meeting room. Mobile devices are strictly forbidden, so you don’t
You know how you can be going along in a conversation with a friend or a loved one, and it all seems to be good, and suddenly, you say something and the conversation stalls or stops entirely. And you’re thinking “What happened?” You didn’t say anything insulting or mean, you just voiced your opinion. Or so you think… I had lunch the other day with a dear friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. I travel a lot for work, and she used to. I was bemoaning the tediousness of air trav
You bury your head in your hands. You’d really like to run screaming from your cubicle, but for one, that would get you instantly fired, for two, your shoes are definitely not made for running. But the stress! Not only does your job stress you out, but there’s your family, friends, chores, errands, social media to keep up with – AARGH! It’s enough to make a grown man/woman weep. So off you go to yoga/pilates (how to make the time for that is yet another stressor), or meditat
No, not “I don’t care about you” – that would be awful! Just “I don’t care.” By itself. As in “I don’t care that you left your socks on the floor.” “I don’t care that you over/under-tipped the server.” “I don’t care that you were five minutes late.” Because here’s the thing: nothing kills romance faster than getting bugged about every little thing that’s different about how the two of you go about life. Certainly, there are major differences, critical differences, that must
Your husband wakes up grumpy, stumbles to the bathroom, glances at your reflection next to his in the mirror, and says “What’s wrong with your hair?” You glare: “I slept on it funny. Good morning to you too.” Strike one against husband: “Why do you have to be so unpleasant first thing?” You’re marshalling the kids’ breakfasts, making their lunches, packing backpacks. Your spouse enters, clean-shaven, ready to go. He holds out his car-coffee-cup: “We’re out of coffee.” “So,
You're sitting in a meeting at work--things have been going well, the team adopted a number of your ideas, the boss nodded your way and said, "Good work!" But then, when it was time to put the team together to present the project to the client, guess who was left out of the mix? You! Again. You ...
Being angry and frustrated at work is its own special brand of misery. Why? Because you can’t lash out at the co-worker or manager or VP that is driving you nuts without risking the loss of your job. Whereas at home, you can probably get plenty angry at your teenager, your spouse, or your mother, without them banishing you from their presence forever. More often than not, we just stomach whatever frustrations we endure at work. But that’s not good for your emotional or physi
Harried, bedraggled, already late for work, you do your best to be patient as your kids scramble out of the car juggling school backpacks and soccer gear, when your youngest pipes up “Where’s my lunch?” Oh, shoot. In the fridge, that’s where his lunch is. You root in your purse, grab some bills and shove them at your child, “Sorry, Sweetie. Here’s some lunch money. Gotta go. I love you.” As you maneuver your way out of the cramped school drop-off area, you glance over to a sl
The alarm rings. Too early, much too early. A whole hour early. You know you should get up. You promised yourself you’d start working out. Today’s the day! Huzzah! Yesterday it seemed like such a great idea. You even set out your gym gear, ready to get going first thing. Groan. Aargh! You bury yourself in the comfort of your bed. Just a couple more minutes. Guilt sets in…You should go. Now. Time’s a-wasting. Should, should, should! You fall back asleep. You wake up just in
Those who are fortunate enough to have a job in these tough economic times are often working longer hours and carrying the workload normally done by two or more workers. The holiday season is the perfect time for employers to show their employers they appreciate their efforts. Appreciation doesn't necessarily have to come in a monetary form but, still, should come in a way that show that the employer really means it. Nelson, a career and relationship expert who was a keynote
Recently, I adopted a rescue dog - a one year old German Shepherd - and as is true of most rescue dogs, he was an anxious, insecure puppy. Nonetheless, as I stood in front of him and gently petted his head, I was surprised when he cringed and backed away. Then I remembered that his experience with humans before his rescue had been less than ideal. Much less. Try “chained outside to a post” less. So I tried another approach. I waited a moment, then stood by his side, facing i
Ever notice the list of “have-to’s” you’ve got going? As in ‘have-to’ get up and get yourself going, ‘have-to’ get everybody fed-dressed-out-the-door, ‘have-to’ get to work, ‘have-to’ do the work, ‘have-to’ put up with a boss/co-worker/client you can’t stand, ‘have-to’ run the errands, do the chores, pay the bills, and on and on. When life is reduced to a list of “have-to’s,” it becomes a drudgery, just a long list of dutiful things you must do as a responsible adult. YUCK!!
My German Shepherd-mix rescue pup, Baer, is a great dog. He’s all legs and energy, so sometimes I think of him as Fred Astaire, and sometimes more as the Energizer Bunny on steroids. Especially near mealtimes. I feed my dogs twice a day, and I’m convinced they have clocks in their stomachs, because right around 5:30 p.m. (a half hour before their 6:00 p.m. meal), they get antsy. In particular, Baer. But around 5:30 p.m., I may very well still be working—as I am today, and Ba
One of my dogs, Kobe, has epilepsy. It’s very well controlled with--of all things--Chinese herbs, but when there’s a major stressor, Kobe may be wracked with seizures. In his world, mercifully, there are few major stressors, but one of them is--thunder. We had a major storm in Califo ia last month, with a thunderclap in the middle of one afte oon that sounded literally like the sky was falling (no Chicken Little version, this!), crashing down on our very heads. I rushed ove