This is going to be a LITTLE CONFUSING, because I have TWO reasons to persuade you to click through to another site today, and the two reasons can be combined, but I have very different reasons for the two reasons, if you follow me, and it is a little tricky to organize my thoughts when I am trying to be persuasive. Did I ever tell you about the temp job I took in sales when I was about 20? HA HA HA HA HA. I could not manage to (1) give away (2) free things (3) to people who wanted them.

Okay, okay. So, okay. The first thing is that I have a post up today at Milk and Cookies, which is the column Linda and I co-write for a site called “Work It, Mom.” Occasionally I tell you to click through a particular Milk and Cookies post (like if there’s a giveaway I want to let you in on), but usually I don’t: I figure you’re either reading it or you’re not, and product-related blogs aren’t everyone’s jar of coins.

But today I want to PUSH you a little, because I wrote a post on a subject we’ve been discussing here, which is gift ideas. The concept, like this post, is a little split and confused, but the basic idea is that these are gifts that (1) look big, helping to camouflage any cutbacks you may have made this year, and (2) are useful gifts for recipients who are ALSO trying to make cutbacks this year. YOU save money and THEY save money!

The second thing is that this site I write for has revamped their whole site. They want people to come visit it, hoping that people will like it better now. And as an incentive, they are dangling a $25 Amazon.com gift card on a stick. What you have to do—and pay attention now, because it is just a teeny bit tricky—is: (1) go visit “Work It, Mom”; (2) come back here (HERE, not THERE) and leave a comment saying something you like about the site (hey, how about “I just LURVE that Milk and Cookies column! It is teh fab! And the authors are so charming and lovable and I just want to SMOOCH them!”). You have until Friday the 5th, and then I’ll draw a winner in the evening sometime, assuming I remember, and if not I’ll do it on the weekend. I hope. …Maybe I’ll just write myself a note right now while I’m thinking about it.

Even though “Work It, Mom” is my boss, they’re not making me post this, and in fact they made it very easy for me to say no if I wanted to, and also I’m not getting anything out of it if you DO click through, so I won’t be all sad if you don’t. I’m doing it because I follow a lot of blogs and I know a ton of you are fretting about how to afford the holidays, and this seemed like a nice way to add $25 to one of us.

So to sum up: I have written a gift-ideas post elsewhere that I think it is worth the pain of clicking the mouse button for. And if you WANT TO, you can get a little chore done while you’re there: find something nice to say about the site (the colors are pretty! the banner is cool! I like the font! I like your earrings!) and type it here in this comment section, and that’ll enter you in the contest to win the Amazon.com gift card.

My mom said I should do a post on larger gifts that people could go in on together. She came from a family with four siblings, and she says people from bigger families are often looking for ways to reduce the sheer number of packages under the tree. But it soon came out that this whole idea was just because she wanted to talk more about her Roomba.

My mom and dad got a Roomba a while back, and they love it. And I don’t mean “they love their vacuum cleaner,” I mean they sent me MORE THAN ONE digital picture, of the Roomba, POSING. Not to show me how it looked in action, but just to show how cute it was. Like it was a new pet or a new baby. And they refer to it as “she.” My mom told me that the other day when the Roomba “climbed back into her perch,” she (and that “she” refers TO THE ROOMBA, not to my mother, and so does the “her” of “her perch”) “made her sad sound, meaning she needed attention.” And, continued my mother, “I checked her brushes and I went ‘EEEEEE!’ She needed a good cleaning!”

Well, okay. I mean, is anyone else thinking these people are good candidates for a lap dog or something?

But then this morning I saw that Amazon.com has the Roomba for an additional $110 off (it was already $90 off, and anything that can be reduced $90 and then reduced another $110 and still just be “on sale,” you KNOW you’re not going to like the price of it) (it’s STILL $250), until 10:00 a.m. U.S. pacific time or until they run out of them, whichever comes first. So, fine. I will tell you about the Roomba, even though I have NO INCENTIVE to do so. The person asking me to talk up the Roomba is MY MOTHER, not a wealthy corporation slipping me a couple of crisp Roombas under the table.

I have seen the Roomba in action, and it’s like a large, serious, bustling ladybug. It radiates an attitude of “SOME of us have WORK to do, so if you wouldn’t mind LIFTING YOUR FEET for a second—unless that would be TOO MUCH TO ASK.”

Seeing the prep work my mom did before using it, I realized I would probably never buy one. You have to get all the clutter off the floor, and if you want it to vacuum under things like endtables (where it can’t fit), you have to get those off the floor too. Since to me the WORST part of vacuuming is the prep work, the Roomba seems like it’s just doing the fun part, like when a certain SPOUSE thinks he should get POINTS for putting IN a load of laundry, when he doesn’t do the folding or the putting away.

But for my mom, who is one of those automatic decluttering people who will put your book away on the bookshelf while you are in the bathroom, it’s great. Her house is always decluttered anyway, and she hates getting out the vacuum cleaner and hates using the vacuum cleaner, so for her it’s perfect: she sets up the Roomba and goes and does something else, and when she comes back to the room (this time the “she” is my mother), the room is freshly vacuumed and the Roomba is back in her (the Roomba’s) perch, recharging herself and sending out self-satisfied rays of “THERE. THAT’S better. *sniff*”

So. There. My mom likes her Roomba. And she recommends it as a gift that siblings could all chip in on to give to a parent.

Hey, what do you do with holiday cards when you receive them? I put them up with poster putty around the wide doorway leading from our living room into our kitchen, so that I’ll see them a million times a day and can admire them from my favorite recliner. I look forward to the mail every day in December.

Okay, so I am a little behind, and Black Friday is almost over. [Edit: I’m clicking through on Saturday and still finding the deals active.] But geez! I’d think TWO adults with five children would be easier than ONE adult with five children, but actually it is not turning out to be. We did get the tree up, though, and decorated (with children’s help, so it was an Excedrin Afternoon), and I put lights on a tree outside, and also I ate a lot of leftover pumpkin cheesecake, so I guess it was a productive day after all.

I like to give books as gifts for many reasons. Actually, I’m not going to waste time talking about those reasons, I’m just going to list some of the books that look like good gifts from the Amazon.com sale. Get $25 or more of them and the shipping is free.

(image from Amazon.com)

Castle, $8 down from $20. We have this ourselves, and I also have one on the gift shelf for the next birthday party one of the kids gets invited to. It’s an AMAZING pop-up book: I’m not even interested in knights and castles but I’ve looked through it several times.

(image from Amazon.com)

The Mitford Bedside Companion, $11 down from $27. My mom says she finds the Mitford books very soothing—good, happy, mild reading. I might get this for my mother-in-law, since she likes that kind of book.

(image from Amazon.com)

America at Home, $16 down from $40. Photography books make great gifts, and they’re fun to pass around during awkward family gatherings. Keeps the conversation going. This one looks like the heart-warming kind you could give to ANYONE.

(image from Amazon.com)

New York Vertigo, $16 down from $40, an EDGIER coffee table book than America at Home. Apparently this one will make you dizzy: the description says the photographer “scaled walls and scoured rooftops”—or something like that, I’ve lost the page and don’t feel like double-checking.

(image from Amazon.com)

Return to Fairyopolis, $8 down from $20. Ooooooooooooo, I want this myself. (If the child you’re buying it for hasn’t read Fairyopolis, you can get it for $13.50, so that’s both books for close to $20.)

(image from Amazon.com)

The Annotated Secret Garden, $14 down from $35. This would be great for anyone who loved The Secret Garden as a child. Paul has The Annotated Alice (same idea, but for Alice in Wonderland) and it’s a beautiful gift-book-looking book.

(image from Amazon.com)

Pirateology: Guidebook and Model Set, $7 down from $18. I wish my kids would get into these “ology” books, because they really appeal to me.

These deals are just for today, it looks like, so if you miss them—well, that’s what you get for spending QUALITY TIME with your FAMILY. [Edit: The deals are still working today, Saturday, in the morning.]

Do you realize it is, like, four weeks until the winter holidays? Ha ha, like I know anything about any winter holiday except the one we celebrate in our house (Secular Christmas). But they’re, um, at approximately the same time of year, right? And so all of us can unite in our common panicky feeling, because The Holiday is coming soon for all of us?

I find the panicky feeling MOSTLY pleasant, because I enjoy shopping and I enjoy buying gifts. I spend kind of a lot of time doing it, and feel disappointed when I’m done. I’m afraid this means a lot of SHOPPING TALK around here in the near future—but fortunately, only about four weeks of it! Because there are only about four weeks left! No, sorry, don’t panic!

I have several general suggestions to start with. I do almost all of my shopping at Amazon.com, so I’m afraid the tips are mostly SKEWED in that direction.

1. Visit or subscribe to Want Not. Mir keeps track of the deals and who’s got free shipping and who’s got coupons. I’ve gotten so many good buys because of her.

2. Put anything you’re considering buying at Amazon.com into your shopping cart (or the “saved items” area of the shopping cart). Whenever you go to your cart, it’ll let you know which things have gone up or down in price since the last time you went to your cart. This has gotten me some unexpected good deals: sometimes the price of something drops very low for a day or two and I never would have noticed if it hadn’t been in my cart.

3. A bunch of Amazon.com items (certain books! certain kitchen items! certain other assorted things! there is no way to predict it!) qualify for a “4-for-the-price-of-3” discount: mix-and-match any four of these items and you’ll get the cheapest one free. Well, that means you want to be a little careful not to order items costing $20, $20, $20, and $4, because you’ll get the $4 one free. Furthermore, if you are ordering EIGHT items that all qualify, you’ll get the cheapest TWO free: if you’ve got items costing $20, $20, $20, $20, $10, $10, $10, $10, you’ll get two $10 items free. But if you place two separate orders, one for the $20 items and one for the $10 items, you’ll get one $20 and one $10 free. So LOOK SHARP, people!

4. Many Amazon.com items qualify for free shipping if you have an order totaling more than $25. So, you know, don’t place a $22.47 order and pay $12 shipping on it. Depending on how much shopping I need to do, I might place an order every time I hit the $25 mark—or I might let it pile up so I don’t get stranded at the end with a small order that I can’t get to $25 without adding, say, four pounds of chocolate-covered dried cherries. Just for example.

5. Also, the free shipping option can be slowwwwwwwwww. Like, 2 weeks slow. So it’s a good idea to order early if, like me, you hate paying for shipping.

There. I had one more Amazon.com tip, but I’ve forgotten it. If I remember it, I’ll mention it in one of the next million shopping posts.

Also, this morning I got an email from The Land of Nod, which is Crate & Barrel’s kid store. They have a free shipping deal through Monday on all non-furniture items: use code RUDOLPH. A lot of their stuff is not in my price range ($30 for a “stocking stuffer”?), but I’m planning to sort through anyway. It’s hard to resist free shipping, and this personalized ornament would be a cute teacher gift, and even I like playing with these six puzzles in one puzzles. Here are the gifts under $10 and here are the gifts $10-25, and here are the gifts $25-50. (But watch out: you can buy this Melissa and Doug birthday cake toy from The Land of Nod for $24.95, or you can buy it from Amazon.com for $11.99.)

Urk, I am so full. We had dinner at my parents’ house. They provided turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, french-cut beans, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls, drinks, cherry pie, ice cream, and cookies. We provided seven people and a Jell-O salad.

Does this seem FAIR? Does this seem RIGHT? We breeze in with our bowl of Jell-O, leap on the feast like poorly-trained puppies, and then breeze off to meet the bedtime deadline while my parents hobble into the kitchen to manage the mountains of dishes and molehills of leftovers, dry-swallowing Excedrin and wondering if four weeks is enough time to prepare for another holiday dinner with us.

Next year maybe we should try a lunchtime Thanksgiving rather than a suppertime Thanksgiving. After we eat, Paul could take the kids outside to run off some of that, um, youthful energy, while I help in the kitchen by nibbling up the leftovers so they don’t have to be put away. Or maybe we should have Thanksgiving dinner after the kids are in bed. Or after they’ve left home.

I made the Chocolate-Crusted Pumpkin Cheesecake today. I make it every year. I made it this year even though my parents said not to bring dessert because they were making a cherry pie. I won’t bring it, but I still made it. Now the whole PAN can be leftovers!

Tomorrow I’ll make the cranberry-raspberry Jell-O salad. Mmmmmmm.

Hey, listen. Linda and I are going to be doing gift-idea posts over at Milk and Cookies, and I also plan to pass along good deals here on this blog. But what I need to know is, what price range are we talking about? I don’t want to give you a bunch of $10 deals if you think of those as stocking stuffers, but I don’t want to discourage people by talking too much about $100 deals. What are you planning to spend this year for your sweetheart? for each kid? for your parents? for your in-laws? for your friends? $10? $20? $50? $100? As little as possible? If you feel shy talking about money (I always feel shy talking about money), you can go anonymous.

I need to make a public apology. I said some things about steel-cut oats that were neither nice nor fair. I believe I said “YUCK.” Considering I’d tasted them plain, that was as unfair as cooking up a batch of plain spaghetti noodles and declaring them “bland.” I hadn’t yet seen the beauty of steel-cut oats, which lies in their ability to convey other, more delicious substances to the mouth in a Trojan Horse of health and goodness and fiber.

This morning I tried The New Girl‘s suggestion: salt, brown sugar, cinnamon, and milk. And for the first time in my life, I ate an entire serving of oatmeal. Serious!

First I followed the package instructions and brought 1-1/2 cups of water to a boil (I added salt because The New Girl said to—I just went shake-shake-shake, like when salting vegetable water), then added 1/4 cup steel-cut oats. I let them simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then I added….well, I added a lot of brown sugar. I didn’t measure, because I find that measuring sugar makes me feel bad. But looking at the brown sugar baggie, which used to have 1/4 cup sugar in it, I’d estimate I used well over a tablespoon, and probably closer to 2 tablespoons. SHUT UP! I ate OATMEAL!

Then I added a hearty shaking from the cinnamon-sugar shaker, which I make heavy on the cinnamon but it also includes sugar, so, um, more sugar into the oatmeal. And then I put in a slosh of whole milk.

And it was YUM. I still encountered a few areas of Unpleasant Gooeyness, but not many. And now I feel all energized and cheery from all the sugar whole-grain oats!