(If you’re viewing this in a Reader click over to see embedded video.)

We had two parties on Saturday and I had 10 minutes to shoot, edit and upload this video before we had to take off for Party #1. I pulled that off but didn’t execute.

So Monday is the new Saturday … now tell me, what’s the most embarrassing gift you’ve received? Or the best gag gift you’ve ever given?

We started Thanksgiving relaxing around the house and decided to try out a new skate park in town.

We had the pleasure of having 2 Thanksgiving feasts on Thursday with family. I worked off the gravy by whooping ass at Just Dance on the wii. First time I ever played. And we don’t own a wii. But now I want one. Proof:

Our kids got in on the fun too.

And now I’m plotting revenge on Aaron for posting the clip online. Those followers he was talking about? You just sign up right here.

Overnight our daughter got a flu bug and we’ve spent the day today in-between naps and toilet watch. Poor girl.

Yesterday (at the skate park) it was chilly. I was hanging out taking photos when my fingers froze.

And today? It’s 54 outside. Crazy.

Happy Thanksgiving/Black Friday You Nutters!

Things to cross of the long weekend list yet:

# Cut down a Christmas Tree and decorate it/the house.

# Get rid of extra junk laying around.

# Clean out garage so our second car can sleep in it this winter, too.

# Get groceries. Apparently not today.

# Make an entire list of breads and meals. I have a plan.

# Wrap the presents.

# Projects for articles, how-to’s and photographing processes.

We’re gonna be busy. But I like it that way.

Which is all kinds of fun because although you never see them, lately I am vlogging behind the scenes. So – wipe the slate clean and let’s get to it. Today a mishmash of thoughts and questions at you. And apparently I wink now?

From jodimichelle.

Gotta love the freeze frame.

There was only one other person who knew we were possibly buying this house until yesterday. This has been happening (again, possibly) for the past week-ish. And since we weren’t sure, there were multiple offers on the house etc … we just decided not to tell anyone. Then I couldn’t hold it in any more, I needed someone to know! I wanted to shout. I was so excited!

It’s been a stressful week. For more than the reasons of this house, I’ve had a few other upsets going on and indecision is a hard one for me to swallow.

You should also know – buying this house doesn’t change our current plans of possibly moving out of state, we could very well still pick up and move for the summer, 6 mo or a year. We also plan to be avid travelers. As I’ll explain in the video, the house was on sale. For sale, yes. ON SALE, also correct.

So if we pick up and move or decide to travel for a month – instead of putting our stuff in storage or paying rent to “keep a place in case” we’ll be paying less than all of that by owning this little house. This little house I love.

If I still didn’t answer your “WHA???” moments, let me know.

Otherwise, let the dreaming continue …

(Also, it’s numbers are 116 … Imma take that as a sign.)

The short history is: 6 weeks before giving birth to my son (He was born May of 2008) I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and had to administer insulin twice daily along with controlling my diet, and checking my blood sugar 4 or 5 times a day as well. After I delivered a healthy 9+ pound baby my blood sugar readings didn’t return to normal for a very long time.

Here I am 3 years later with what would be considered Pre-Diabetes (type 2) or Insulin Resistance and I’m doing everything in my power to keep the diagnosis at bay for as long as I can. From what I’ve been reading and what my past history has been – unless I can keep control of how/what and when I eat, the inevitable isn’t a maybe … it’s a when and how long?

So I’ve started to schedule my meals. I try to eat at the same time every day. And also try to have the same thing every day with minimal diversions. The more scheduled I am, the more predictable my glucose level is, the healthier I am.

These are my mainstays:

Kale, Carrots, Farm eggs, Romaine lettuce, Flax seed oil, Red (all colors) peppers, Spinach, Wild caught Alaskan salmon, and Green tea (with ginger and added cinnamon).

(Also, this goes without saying but this is not a recommended diet for everyone and you should absolutely consult your health care professionals before drastic changes to the way you eat or move on a daily basis.)

I haven’t been good at keeping my blood sugar under control this winter and most of it was because there was a time last summer/fall when everything was awesome. I didn’t have to poke my finger, my body was easing back into being able to digest and process foods I wasn’t able to before and I just went for it. Unfortunately I went for it without balance or a sense of when enough was enough.

I’m learning.

One of the things I have every day is a Smoothie – and this is one of the areas I get to mix things up.

In every smoothie I add kale, spinach and flax seed oil and today I also had pineapple, frozen raspberries, grapefruit juice.

Otherwise my day consists of a lot of eggs, no dairy (or very little … on the weekends I treat myself to a latte), mushrooms, salmon, salads, carrots and a mix of other veggies.

Aside from the health benefits for me I’ve also noticed that I don’t get headaches, cravings or lock jaw. I sleep better and deeper, feel more rested in the mornings and am satisfied, not stuffed. Big difference.

However, it’s really hard – especially around 8 pm when all the commercials on TV are about pizza. And even though this is what I have to do right now, I’m realistic that this isn’t what I will be doing forever. Maybe every 6 months I need to reset my pancreas and this is how I go about doing it.

A year ago I made a video about what I eat …

What do you do when you need to push the reset button?

Don’t be alarmed: My daughter is here to present her own idea … with some honest baiting from me (I had to think on my feet, the girl keeps you guessing). The baiting would have to do with the product example I gave her, but it’s only because we’re huge fans of presumably awesome product. (No, really … it is awesome.)

Other than that, I’ll let her take it away:

You can contact her for inquiries and pricing at this address.

Her goal? $150. Her reason? To make it easier on me.

Which, hello. How amazing is that statement alone? Precious is what that is. I do know that what she’s jonesing for is a Nintendo DS and a couple games.

What are you waiting for?

This video is longer – but you get the idea. I had to wake him up to pick up my daughter from school so he’s VERY tired … but his face. Oh his face.

He remembered!

I’m just going to warn you I was in rare form. Also? Bonus at the end.

I don’t have much else to say.

It’s January! A couple months ago I asked Aaron to please, please, please take over the management of our funds because although I love math (no, really) and numbers (yup, I promise) I get lost on details.

My favorite budget is a percentage budget where everything is broken down into line items – but larger ones such as:

Savings
Tithe
Spending
Vacation
Housing

And then breaking it out from there as to what is really going on. So lets say we put 10% into savings – well that could mean (in my head) that we’re putting 50% of the total towards “No Touch” and 30% of the total toward “Furniture” or whatever but Aaron much prefers a profit and loss statement on his spending.

Um. Yeah. Not so much.

So he took over and it’s been B-Glorious but he sat down over Christmas break and forecasted our entire year. Dot dot dot. I am not lying when I say details are lost on me. Getting from point A to point B is the fun part – but mapping out the entire step by step process looks like suffocation to me.

I’m here to say that it’s not true! There’s Adventure! Danger! Excitement! and it’s all inside of our budget. Who knew?

Being on the same page and understanding our budget in a non emotional way has been so helpful throughout this journey and it looks to be a good thing for the next year as well. Will we stick to this to the T? Probably not, I hope we can stay close, but we’ll have to hammer out a few more “budget meetings” and “changes” before we’re on any kind of autopilot with our money … but at least we’re learning now and taking charge before the charge took us. Get it? The Charge?? As in cards and debt … and … oh. Never mind.

We closed out 2010 with just a car payment as debt and were able to sucker punch it and make a large year end payment that was about 15% of the total loan left on top of our monthly payment and we hope to be able to have the car paid off by summer. We have a plan.

But this month my goal is to keep my cash envelopes free of unplanned pregnancies or STDS. No hanky panky between any two.