Got My Hair Did

Well, I finally went and got a hair cut last week. The reason I am blogging about it is because it is the first haircut in my entire life that I walked out of the door of the hair salon excited. I LOVE my hair long and usually when I get a haircut it is only a trim and no one can tell the difference. And when I do get my hair cut and hate it for about 2 or 3 days before I realize that it is not that bad and I'm just super picky. So thank you Britt at Ananadas in downtown Asheville! I will most definitely be returning.

This being a monumental moment in my life (sad I know) I thought I would include a self-taken portrait of myself and post it on my blog for the world to see:

Before...

AFTER!!

You may be asking yourself why I am not smiling in this picture if I am so happy about my new haircut. Well, I take awful up close shots, especially smiling so....i didn't smile. And I will not tell you how many pictures it took me to actually get one that looked alright. Definitely need a new camera. But that is another story for another time.

Anyways, I have been so happy with my new hair cut. I have cut my shampoo/conditioner usage in half. It takes me so much less time to blow dry it. I can put it up without getting a headache. I still miss my long hair and will definitely come back and mostly because I am super lazy about haircuts.

Now I can go out and enjoy beautiful spring days without fear of getting whipped to death by my hair.

HAPPY SPRING!

Recent Activity

Quick recap (yeah right) of what I have been up to recently:

Anne Noll rolled into town in early March for a weekend of fun times with her older sister. We had a fun weekend together rolling around Asheville causing all sorts of trouble. We cooked up a storm, slept, and shopped. It was a good time.

August 2008 right before college

March 2010

After Anne left town Mary Noll rolled intown to spend Spring Break 2010 in Asheville, NC. What a week it was. The week's activities included many shenanigans (all legal of course). We went on several absolutely beautiful hikes through the mountains of Western North Carolina. It made me fall even more madly in love with this place in which I live. Because I did not leave town for Spring Break, Mary was able to experience a little taste of my everyday life activities in Asheville including many Young Life activities. Many late night hang outs. She even got to babysit the Sloan children, Asher and Lucy, with me. All in all we had a great week together and it was sad to see her go.

September 2008

Spring Break 2010!!!

And the family train kept right on rolling. My mom, Anne, my aunt Lisa and her two boys Ben and Tucker, came for a visit. They rented a gorgeous house on Lake Lure about 45 min from me. I got see them several times throughout the week. It was good to see them and show them where I live, my new apartment, and my life here in Asheville. They visited Chimney Rock, Hendersonville, and Asheville. There was much shopping, laughing, and enjoying each other. When they left I was sad as well knowing it would be months before I see them again.

The month of March definitely came and went with such a ferocity I feel like it was non existent. But all in all it was a good month and it means that we are just that much closer to summer!!!!

P.S. I would love to see just one Texas Bluebonnet. No matter where I am living in the future, my children WILL have a picture taken in a field of Bluebonnets. You can hold me to that

drinkclip.com

So I've been way more slack than normal about posting and I have several posts to catch up on so you might want to give yourself a few minutes...

DRINK CLIP!!!!!

You might be wondering, what is this? well it is an amazing new product/company that my good friend Leslie Sloan and her advertising agency, Big Bridge, has been working on. It is basically the best product ever and I will most certainly be purchasing several. You should go check out the website http://drinkclip.com/ especially because I, Amy Noll, made it on the website.

Drink clips are nifty devices that allow you to have a portable cup holder wherever life may take you.

Scenario #1: you are at a potluck dinner and you have been slowly sipping on your beverage of choice. Dinner is served but you don't want to put down your drink for fear that someone might mistake it for their own. What do you do?? Well, you grab a drink clip of course! you clip it to your side and slide the drink securely in. BAM! now you have 2 free hands to acquire as much food as your two hands can hold.

Scenario #2 you are camping and you have brought along your camping chairs. But unfortunately they were gifts and they don't have cup holders on them . Setting your drink on the ground is not an option since we all know it won't last 2 seconds beneath your feet. So you go to your bag and grab a drinkclip and snap it easily onto the side of your chiar. BAM! problem solved. Now you can enjoy your cup-less armchair with drink clip by your side

Scenario #3 You are a busy working person. You are constantly on your laptop. You also happen to be prone to accidents occasionally. So naturally you purchased a drinkclip to clip onto whatever surface you have your laptop on so that you will no longer be in fear of spilling diet Coke or a steaming hot cup of coffee on your beautiful and important laptop. Once again, problem solved.

Obviously these are only a few of the uncountable scenarios where drinkclip is super handy.

So go check out the website. Then buy some. Buy some for yourself, your neighbors, your grandma, your in-laws, your husband, your kids (works great as a craft holder)

drinkclip.com

In the Middle of It All

Today I am letting a "peace that transcends all understanding" comfort me.

Even in the middle of winter there is still beauty

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,

will guard your herats and your minds in Christ Jesus."

-Philippians 4:7

Road Trip

So last night on an episode of The Middle (Wed 8:30/7:30c on ABC) the family on the show went on a road trip. I could not find a video to show you but it was basically the classic road trip scene with kids and much obnoxious but still laughable singing.

It definitely made me think about all of the places my parents took us as kids (hopefully many more places to come. hint, hint Mom and Dad). Every summer was spent hauling our 29 foot travel trailer everywhere across the US and even to Vancouver one summer. Yes, all seven of us would pile into a car and spend hours and hours together in cramped spaces watching VHS movies on our 9 inch TV complete with computer speakers that was strapped between my parents in the front (this was before portable DVD players, at least I think so).

We would drive all day(s) and sometimes into the night to get to our destination of choice. We would get so sick and tired of each other that we would literally kiss the ground when we would arrive at the final stop. One thing about these road trips is that you were never aloud to voice the fact that you had to pee. Stops waste time, the more stops you have the more time you have to spend in the car. I used to think my mother was crazy for it but after doing some road tripping of my own, I have come to realize she is not crazy, merely trying to save every minute she could. To entertain ourselves we listened to many audio something or others including many things from Focus on the Family, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and so on. There was also lots of NPR listening that occurred. If there were places we frequented often, my parents memorized the NPR stations for these areas. Being a kid I did not particularly care for Diane Rehm's voice or Talk of the Nation, or the hourly news. So I would try and listen to my portable CD player as loud as I could. Rest stops were timed and we always ate in the car. Getting to our destination quickly was always the name of the game. Five kids, a dog, and two parents can obviously quickly grow tired of being in close proximity with each other

These road trips are some of my favorite memories growing up. They took us to so many places it would take forever to name them all. A few included Yellowstone National Park, Oregon, Washington, many National Forests in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arizona, Georgia, and Vancouver. That's right. We pulled our 29-foot travel trailer from Boerne, TX up through Oregon and Washington right on in to Canada. It was so amazing!

I always loved visiting these places and being able to mark off what states we had visited or driven through. We even had one of those maps on the side of our travel trailer where you could fill in the states you had visited.

Out of all of these places we traveled Colorado was always my favorite. To this day my favorite spot is at a place called Taylor Park Colorado. It is about 35 miles from Gunnison and right over Cottonwood Pass which comes out of Buena Vista, CO. They have a few camp gorunds there and we would spend several weeks every summer waking up at the crack of dawn to fish, hike, explore the woods, and ride my grandparents 4-wheelers. It was always the favorite part of my summer. It was always where I felt the happiest and most free. It established a deep rooted love for Colorado that to this day still exists inside of me. Here are a few pics from over the years:

This is the 2nd of our trailers we had. And Pearl, our diesel Excursion that hauled us across America for many years before we traded her in for a mini-van (swagger wagon)

The greatest place ever. Taylor Park Reservoir

the only "store" for miles. always crazy people here

this is one of my favorite pics. top of the Continental Divide. taken right after we took a "short cut" that led us literally straight up a mountain.

These were times when our family was all together and we got to enjoy just being with each other. Since my brother's death it has been hard to realize that we will not ever all truly be together here on earth. John freaking loved all of these places just as much if not more than I did. Whenever I go to these places I will remember him fondly and all of those times with my family, the good and the bad. the fighting and the laughing. The campfires, timed showers, fishing, agonizing waits to get up in the morning, fighting over the bunk beds and who would get the dog at night, and all those hours spent in the car. Together. Everything and all of it I would not trade for the world.

Fail

So yet another snow storm has moved into Western North Carolina. This morning I woke up quickly checked the internet, saw LATE START on UNCA's website and rolled over and fell back asleep. I woke up two hours later at 9AM and freaked out because I have a Spanish presentation today that I was going to wake up early for. I thought it was at 10:20 so I scrambled to get ready so I could practice it before hurrying to school in the nastsy, nasty weather. Mind you most people are comfortably staying home today. Me, nope. I actually have to be productive. Tried to make an english muffin without burning it but got a double bloody nose and while trying to stop it the muffins burned. Fail. Then I couldn't find my keys for 10 minutes. Fail. I ran out the door at 10:10 already running late. Sped to school and trudged through the snow and up three flights of stairs carrying two bags. Got up there and realized my presentation was not until 11:20. FAIL!! So now I am sitting in the Library wishing Spring Break were here. OH wait, this just in. CLASS CANCELLED!!!!!!!


This being said, the real blog post was going to be about Texas Independence Day. It actually goes along with the title anyway. Yes, today, March 2 is not only the wonderful and amazing Leslie Sloan's birthday but it is also the day in history that Texas declared independence from Mexico. This is a fail because the Battle of the Alamo was still happening until March 6 AND we lost, but whatever Texas. I would get stoned if I said this while living in Texas.

This day was always a special day growing up in Texas. In 7th grade during our Texas History period we had the biggest party you've ever seen. The ironic thing was that we dressed up in coon skin caps and leather fringe but everyone brought Mexican food. So fantastic.

I love Texas because everyone walks around talking about how we could suceed from the US if we wanted to because we were the only state that was it's own country before the US took us over. REALLY? would you want to be your own country? i don't think so.

If you are interested in learning something about this interesting state feel free to click here: http://www.qsl.net/w5www/texasfacts.htm


So anyways, Happy Texas Independence Day! Eat some Mexican food (it's good for you)