Alright, this is it: your official last weekend to get into the Halloween spirit. If you've been procrastinating on the whole "pumpkin" thing...well, I hear you: I haven't carved one this year either, mostly because I hate carving pumpkins. But I have been to a pumpkin patch - that's one part of the season that I refuse to miss out on.

If you're in the NYC area, you have to check out Harvest Moon Orchard - it's about an hour outside Manhattan, in North Salem N.Y., and totally worth a Zipcar rental. They have a big pumpkin field with lots of heirloom varieties, live music, bouncy castles, farm animals, an adorable country store, and turkey legs (which are obviously worth the trip alone).

It's so much fun.

Two years already.

I can hardly believe it.

I was going to get crazy with this birthday - I actually phoned up and reserved a petting zoo before coming to my senses and remembering that my son is two - but decided to keep it simple: close friends and family members, store-bought cupcakes and delivery pizza and homemade angel food cake with chocolate icing (the exact same cake that my mom made for me every birthday when I was a little girl).

Kendrick is between quarters at school right now, so yesterday (one of those crazy-perfect Indian Summer days), the three of us hit 95N for a journey up to New Haven and a picnic on the rooftop of his friend's apartment building.

It got a little rowdy up there in the sky.

Eat hay (Francesca force-fed me this Ezekiel sprouted-whatever bread, which I only made vaguely palatable by loading it up with peanut butter, bananas and honey) ...

Drink ten-dollar juices that include things like wheatgrass (we all know how I feel about juicing...but - as much as I hate to admit it - this was actually pretty delicious) ...

One of the nicer things about living in a cute little antique-y East Coast town is that it’s relatively easy to convince even the most die-hard city-dwellers to board the MetroNorth and come say hi. We lure them with promises of home-cooked meals, fall foliage, and fire pits, and in October we get to add on the fact that Sleepy Hollow (as in Washington Irving/Headless Horseman) is right next door…which means that we have access to lots and lots of fun Halloween-themed stuff.

On Sunday night, our friends Brian and Lauren journeyed north for a double date that we booked through HowAboutWe for Couples’ Concierge Service, and we wanted to make sure it was worth the trip.