PSF: Not Exactly Roughing It...

If you've been reading here lately or keeping up with me on facebook, you may have heard about the fabulous trip to Colorado my family and I took. If not, pay more attention don't worry I will fill you in!

About a week before Christmas, we found out that we were being an amazing gift; a trip to Colorado. A family who heard of our family and what we've been going through has a house in Beaver Creek. Every year around Christmas time, they pick a family and donate their house to them for a week. This year, they chose us. And let me tell you, this was no average trip! We were living the high life for that week, and it is a trip we will never forget I am sure!

First of all, as if staying in an amazing house and bringing 4 extra people (my sister's friends) with us wasn't enough, we were flown to Colorado on a private plane.Which was really, really amazing!

Definitely a step up from your average flight, don't ya think!? As we were flying in, we could already start to see the beautiful, snowy white mountains!

Once we landed, we drove about 30 minutes (with amazing views the whole way! Everywhere you looked, it was so pretty) to the awesome house we stayed in. Seriously, it was such a beautiful house!

The picture is kind of dark... I don't know why it didn't occur to me to take a picture during actual daylight.

As soon as we got to the house, my sister and her friends literally ran into the house and before I even got inside, they had claimed their bedrooms! The house was just as beautiful inside as out; it was 5 stories and 5 bedrooms! We all kind of ended up on our own floor; my sister and her friends were on the next to last floor, I was above them and my parents were in the huge master bedroom on the top floor.

This was my room.

Clearly, this was taken after I had been living in it a few days!

The room my sister and 2 of her friends stayed in

The room the other 2 girls stayed in. (Sorry crappy iPhone picture)

The living area upstairs on the main floor was beautiful! It had a really nice kitchen, dining room and living room where we spent a lot of time playing games and watching movies!

The kitchen is on the right, dining room on the left and the living room in the middle!

Not only was the house clearly amazing, but the trip itself was also a blast! My mom and I don't ski (hate it. Despise skiing. Tried it once, never again!), so we spent our days walking around town (before the temperature dropped later in the week to single digits, including 0), shopping, etc. We even went and drank Pear Martini's one day! They were so good!

Yum!!!

It was really nice to spend some time with her just the two of us! My dad took my sister and her friends skiing every day, and they (mostly) had a good time! They were even crazy brave enough to face the single digit weather.

Of course, New Years was an experience all in itself, but you read about that already.

The end of the week came way too quickly (we tried to negotiate another day, but it didn't work out) and we were sad to leave the beautiful mountains. We flew home on another amazing private plane as a last part of our high life week!

We are so grateful for this trip that was such a generous gift! It was so nice to completely escape from real life for a week and enjoy some R and R! Great memories were made, a lot of fun was had and the time was definitely well spent!




Hosted by Cecily and Lolli
(I'm accidentally posting this a day late because I forgot yesterday. Ooops!)

You Don't Know What You've Got Until It's Gone

You know that saying "You don't know what you've got until it's gone"? Like, you can't appreciate all the great things in life until they are taken away from you? Well, that has been on my mind the last couple days since it is sort of how I'm feeling since being back to school. However, I'm making a minor adjustment to that famous phrase. (I apologize to whoever made this quote up, but I am making it my own!) If you ask me? You don't know what you've got until its gone... and then you get it back!!!

When I was at home for break, I didn't really think about school and whether or not I missed it. I was just living in the moment, I guess, enjoying my time with my family. When it came time to come back to school Tuesday, I was apprehensive. I was really sad to leave and I wasn't really sure how I felt about coming back.

Even though a lot of me was sad, part of me was looking forward to going back. It had been a whole month since I had seen or (in most cases) talked to my sorority sisters. And I was ready for that to change. Deep down, I knew once I got back that things would be great!

And I was right; As soon as I got back, I didn't see how I had survived without all these people for a whole month!!! Every new person I saw, it was another fantastic reunion. My little sis, my "god daughter", and another one of our sisters picked me up from the shuttle bus. Just a few minutes before, I was thinking about how sad I was about leaving home. But as soon as I saw them, I just instantly became happier! It was so much fun to see them, to catch up with each others' lives and just to spend time with them again! As I got the sorority house, there were more and more sisters to see, and to catch up with, including my best friend. That was the best reunion of all; to finally see my best friend, to sit on her couch just like always, talking the night away!

At one point last night, I was sitting in the basement surrounded by some of my sisters and best friends, and I thought to myself "This is the life." The more and more time I get to spend with my sisters these last couple days, the happier I am to be here. Whether it's staying up late talking about boys, or sitting in a hospital room because one sister has appendicitis (true story), or just watching a movie; no matter what we are doing being back together makes me realize how much I actually missed these people, whether I knew it before or not.

Even though it sucks to say goodbye to my family, even though I was apprehensive about coming back, once I got back I realized how much I love it here. How much I love my sisters and I am so grateful to have them in my life! Which lead me to my conclusion, you don't know what you've got until it's gone.... and then you get it back. I had to be away from my sisters for awhile and then reunite with them in order to remember how great it is to have sisters! When I was at home, I never realized how much I missed sitting around with my sisters, talking and laughing. But that now that I am doing it again? I can't imagine being anywhere else!!

"It's not just letters, parties and good times. It is a feeling that will never leave you as long as you live. It is a responsibility and a duty to yourself and you sisters. It is an eternal love."

Happy New Year?

When I envisioned my first New Years Eve as a 21 year old, I envisioned big plans. Parties. Bars. Alcohol (because I can partake in that now!), and most importantly friends (because what's a good party without people to enjoy it with?)  Well, plans changed drastically slightly when our family was invited to go on this amazing trip to Colorado (more on that later). Amazing as this trip was (and it was amazing, did I mention that!?), I went to Colorado sans any friends. Instead, I went with my family and four of my sister's friends (who are great, but not exactly who I envisioned spending new years with).

Anyway, as a result of being in Colorado sans friends, I figured New Years plans were out of the question. You know, other than maybe toasting at midnight with my parents and then going to bed. Except, my sister and her friends had other plans and for some reason they wanted me to come. Begged me to come. Obviously, I said no right away, and named off all the reasons I just couldn't possibly go. "I don't have anything to wear." "You just want me to go because I'm 21." " I don't know anyone there." Eventually, though, after all my excuses were shut down and I had a couple glasses of wine at dinner I decided I had nothing better to do, might as well go out with them. Plus, at least when people asked me where I rung in the new year, I could say "The Ritz" as opposed to "At home with my parents" or "in bed" (which could have easily been the truth if I had stayed in). So off we went to a party at the Ritz Carlton because obviously that is where the party is at. And, oh boy, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. (Well, really, I did but I tried to be optimistic and think it would be better than I assumed.)

Me and my "friends" for the evening!

Anyway, I put on my party hat and went in to the Ritz to see what was in store for me. As soon as we got there, my sister and her friends were running off to the bathroom and all of the sudden, for what would be the theme of the night, I had no idea where they were. The rest of the night was spent what I came to call "making rounds; I would occasionally get up from my super exciting activity of sitting in the lobby drinking the night away my few glasses of champagne to walk into the party to check on the girls to make sure they were A) still there B)Not doing anything I wouldn't do inappropriate.

The real fun came around 1 AM when I tried to round everyone up because my mom (driver for the night, lucky her) was on her way to pick us up. Have you ever tried to round up 5 17/18 year old girls who are in party mode?! Let me tell you, it is no easy feat. I went into the party room and I found 4 out of 5 of the girls. The one missing? My sister, of course. "Where's Anna?", I quizzed. No one knew.  Awesome. This is where I turned into, what a friend described as "Mother Hen"; I went into overprotective, older sister/ mother mode. I told the girls I found not to move and went to search for my sister who I found with a boy, of course. "Let's go," I told her, "Say goodnight." Yeah, as if it could be that easy! She informed me she needed to talk to this guy for awhile, and my protests failed. The guy was no help; he promised me he would take care of her. At this point, I was stressed out trying to round everyone up, I was tired, and frustrated with the way my New Years was turning out and I snapped back at the "Oh, yeah, I can trust you." Oops. A little harsh I think. To prove his trustworthiness, he promised me I could punch him where it hurts if he didn't bring my sister back in 5 minutes. What do you say to that!!?

Anyway, she goes down the hall to talk to this guy and I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to watch them without them knowing I'm watching them. Because, you know, what if he tried to run away with my sister!? Once I was confident that he wasn't trying to run away with her (ok, well after I got caught spying on them) I went back to check on the other girls. And what do you know? Another one is M.IA. When I asked where she was the answer was "she ran off with some guy." Fantastic. So I send the other one's to go hang out with Anna and her new found lover, who by the way, did declare his love for my sister in the exact words "I love Anna." Thank you so much for sharing. Now please back away from my sister, thank you. Finally, by some miracle thanks to my great rounding-up skills, all 5 of them are together. I did have to double check a few times, even counting off "1, 2, 3, 4... there's only 4 of you? Who's missing? Oh you're right behind me. Great, we have everyone." Seriously, I felt like a mother counting off all my children. (Thus the "mother hen" reference.)

So, if my New Years Eve has any indication of what my 2011 will be like, let's just say I'm not looking forward to it. Just like I had big plans for New Years Eve, I have big plans for this year (what they are, I'm not sure, but they are big plans, trust me). I definitely do not plan on spending my year chasing around partiers, but hey, you never know. One thing I can say, is that New Years Eve was definitely an adventure, and I'd be up for some adventure in 2011... why not!? If I can handle crazy teenagers, I can handle anything! Bring it on 2011...

I am linking up at Mama Kat's Losin' It for Writer's Workshop today. I used the prompt "If the way you spent your New Year’s Eve is any indication of how the rest of the year will go, how would you say your future is looking right about now?"

I Love Christmas!

Who doesn't love Christmas?! As the song goes, "It's the most wonderful time of the year." Christmas is obviously great. I may be biased, but personally I think it's especially great at my house! Our family traditions are what makes Christmas extra special and extra great in our house. Every year, I look forward to the same things and I know they will still be the same the next year and the next!

It kind of looks like it's snowing outside, but I promise there was no white Christmas in Dallas!

Our traditions start, of course, on Christmas Eve!
Every year, after we go to mass, as soon as we come home we get our "Christmas jammies"! This is so exciting to put on our jammies while we wait for dinner and we wake up ready for Santa in the morning dressed in our Christmas jammies! My sister and I usually match, too, which is fun and a flashback of our younger years when we usually matched!

I know it's blurry, but it's the only picture we have of our pj's! I wanted one of us in them, but it didn't happen.

Our dinner Christmas Eve is also one of my favorite traditions, as it is also one of the most delicious! We have home made, green pasta with salmon and tomato sauce; it's red and green so it's festive and it is seriously so, so good! Definitely one of my favorite meals of all time. (Sadly, no picture of this. I was too busy eating to remember to take a picture!)

Then, Christmas Eve night my sister and I usually spend the night together so we can wake up in the morning and see what "Santa" left. This year was sadly the first year we didn't do that, but I did wake up her in time to go open presents! We are instructed what time we can get up (it gets later every year as we get older, this year it was no earlier than 10 which was fine by us!), and we call our parents when we're ready. We wait at the top of the stairs for the "ok" to come down! We see what Santa left first and then we open the rest of the presents!

This is me, checking out what I got! haha

The aftermath of present opening! We pretty much destroyed our living room.

The rest of the day is my favorite way to spend Christmas; doing absolutely nothing. If we change out of our pajamas, the day is a fail. We stay in our pajamas all day long, and just relax! It's greatness.

This is what I was doing all day; laying on the couch with my laptop of course in my jammies!

My dad cooks another amazing dinner Christmas night; Beef Wellington and for dessert, Chocolate souffle. I don't even really like beef, but this is amazing. It is beef filled with puff pastry and just so, so yummy! We only eat this like once or twice a year, so it's really special!

Yumm!!

That concludes the Basso family Christmas traditions! I hold these traditions so close, and I think it's something that we all look forward to! I hope that these traditions can live on through the years and maybe one day my sister and I will share these with our families! Merry Christmas to you all, I hope your day was wonderful!

Write it down – to get it done (2011 edition)

As you may or may not know, I am a member of a fabulous blogger community, 20 something bloggers. They are hosting a blog swap for all their members, and today's post comes from my partner Annelie. She describes herself on her 20sb profile as "A very passionate and friendly Swede who enjoys traveling, studying, dancing and of course blogging!" Be sure to check out my post at her place, too!

Most things that you put off are ideas that never get started on. But many times we put of finishing stuff that we already begun with, maybe just before the finish line. We call this procrastinating. Why do we do this? We have many reasons: we find the thing we should do boring, or time-consuming, maybe it was not what we expected when we started, don’t see the point of doing it or simply; other things came in the way.

Sometimes it is not even necessary to complete the things we have started, but I think that most of the time we feel better when we complete what we started. It makes us feel that we accomplished something and often it can lead to something better.

Earlier this week I wrote a post named “Write it down and get focused” where I simply shared a story about how I last spring blogged about something I wanted to do and by the end of the year I was doing it. Hopefully, what I will share here will have the same effect.

In 2011 I aim to do the following things that I’ve put off for too long:

1. I will finish by bachelor degrees
I’ve been studying more or less for the last 4 years but still not finished my degrees. I do have a diploma in mass communications but other than that I don’t have a degree yet. This is due to lots of reasons: uncertainties of what to study, time abroad, work, you name it. Now I’m so close to the finish line and 2011 it will happen!

2. I will start an IT-development-project
This is something I’ve been thinking about many times as the ideas emerged, but I’ve always found an excuse to not do it: time, skills etc. But as of Monday this week I’m collecting a team to try it out, and in 2011 it’s happening.

3. I will write at least 100 blog posts
My first year blogging about a school-related subject I produced almost as many posts as I anticipated. The second I did not set a goal, which made me sloppy. Next year is my third year, I this time I will make it. Third time’s a charm!

Goals should be smart; specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. I think mine are, do you? What will you accomplish in 2011 that you’ve been putting off?

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/2137729748/)

Hard Times

I haven't even been home for a week, and already it's hard. For many reasons, in real life home is never quite the glamorized version I have in my head. It's not as fun as I imagine, it's not as happy, it's not a lot of things.

I used to know what to expect when coming home. It used to be always pretty much the same. But for the past year, it's been different. Now when I come home, I don't know what to expect, don't know what it will be like. I don't know how my sister will be feeling, I don't know if she'll be home or in the hospital, I don't know a lot of things. In a lot of ways, this is hard because I like to know things ahead of time. I like being prepared.

Since I've been home, I have been struggling. Struggling with balancing my feelings with everyone elses, struggling with where I fit in when I'm home, struggling to feel happy. And that sucks. When I'm home, I want to be happy. I want to enjoy my time with them because I know when I'm gone I'll miss them. But it's not always easy. It's especially hard lately because my sister has been really sick and that requires a lot of attention from everyone else. My mom's main priority is taking care of her (as it should be), and even though I am ashamed to admit it, a lot of times it leaves me feeling left in the dust.

I am 21 years old, and I can clearly take care of myself. I don't need or require 24/7 attention from my parents, but sometimes you still like a reminder that people are happy to see you. That they are happy you're home. That they care about you just as much as your sister even though her needs come before yours. Logically, I know all of this is true. And I am mad at myself for thinking otherwise. But my emotional side gets the best of me, my feelings get hurt and I become someone I'm not proud of. I am angry, withdrawn, and sad. And most of all, selfish. I try so hard to let my own selfish feelings go, to let the logical side of me take over and remind me that I am loved and I'm not ignored. I try so hard to remember that the reason that my sister is getting all the attention is because she needs it. And I should consider myself lucky that I don't require that kind of attention because I know she is suffering.

But I am only human, and sometimes my emotions get the best of me. I know we are all dealing with a lot and we all have our crosses to bear. Coming home just brings up a lot of different emotions that I am not used to dealing with, and that is why I am struggling. I know it will get easier as time goes on. I know that it won't be like this forever. But the more I feel sad, the more angry I feel because I know I am being selfish. Because I am not the one with cancer and my attention complexes are hardly a problem in comparison. I wish I was a better person; one who was stronger and could handle being "ignored" for a few days; one who cared more about my sister and her struggles than my own selfish needs; one who said "What can I do?" instead of saying "What about me?". I am going to work to be this person. It's not going to be easy, but my family has enough to deal with, and the last thing they need is me acting like I'm 1 instead of 21.

So, these last couple days may have been rough, but I am learning. Learning to let go, to not be so selfish, and learning how to be a better person. I can't help the way I feel, but I can help what I do about it. I have to stop pouting and grow up. It's time. Hard times are on their way out...

The Best Things In Life Are Free...

En route to Dallas today to go home for the holiday's, I learned a couple lessons. First of all, traveling is not cheap. Here's my breakdown for the day:

Lunch on the way to the airport: $7
Earphones for plane: $20
Gas money for my fabulous sorority little sis who drove me to the airport: $10
Starbucks (very necessary part of my travel experience!): $5
Magazines: $10
Dinner: $10
Beer (check that off the list of things I've wanted to do as a 21 year old citizen- have a beer at the airport!): $6
Plane ticket (ok I didn't actually pay for this myself, but I figured I may as well include it): $100+
However...

Finally being home and getting to spend the holidays with my family: Priceless

Second lesson of the day? The best things in life are free, as they say, and being home with my family for Christmas is definitely worth any amount of money! Free? Maybe not so much, but priceless.. for sure!


p.s. Sorry for being a total absentee blogger as of late. It's been a combination of not really knowing how to follow up my last post and writer's block. I hope that this will launch my comeback! Hopefully some of you are still around to read what I have to say!