Dear Kid,

There is really no such thing as a bad time for a donut. Because donuts are pretty darn good.

There is a Great Debate about whether the cakey donuts are better than the fluffy donuts (or vice versa). There is also a rather significant controversy over frosted versus powdered versus plain.

I say don’t discriminate. Eat ‘em all.

There are some people who believe donuts are only supposed to be eaten in the morning. These Breakfast Only Theorists are – imho – rather shortsighted. The folks at Tom + Chee are famous for their grilled cheese donut (packed with enough Yum and calories to last a week).

This time of year seems especially perfect for donut eating. Not only can you enjoy the traditional (year round) donuts and coffee, you can have donuts and cider which just screams “happy fall.” You can have traditional (year round) donut flavors but you can also choose from pumpkin donuts and Halloween decorated donuts.

Another wonderful thing about donuts is that they are an affordable luxury. You get change when you take a $5 bill to buy donuts (try that at Chipotle—I think not).

I’m not advocating a steady diet of donuts (I think I went into sugar shock just thinking those words), but as a fall treat, donuts are hard to top.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Are you going to carve a pumpkin this year?

I haven’t decided either. But in the “better spend some time surfing the internet for ideas I’ll never carve rather than dusting something” vein, I took a quick look for jack-o’-inspiration.

Four hours later, I feel completely inadequate.

It is amazing how many people spend time (lots of time) and talent (lots of talent) carving pumpkins. That’s not a slam—I’m impressed. If I had their talent I might do the same thing (oh, who am I kidding).

Once I had my fill of complicated and intricate pumpkin carving voyeurism (did I mention the 7 hours of web surfing?), I moved on to the Easy Options Category.

I found the traditional jack-o-lanterns, less traditional jack-o-sparrows, happy faces, sad faces, scary faces (extra points for the one where the carver used toothpicks as jagged teeth), political figures (very unrealistic since they are silent), a minion (yes, might be my personal fave), college logos, college mascots (not sure they fall in the easy category), abstract designs (just punch a bunch of holes), and billions and billions more.

It is not easy to live up to internet expectations of pumpkin carving. Even squirrels are in the pumpkin carving game.

Fortunately, I don’t give a fig about the internet’s expectations of my pumpkin carving abilities.

Because there is no way I can compete with a squirrel.

Love, Mom