When I told my husband the topic for today's column was sushi, how to order, eat and even make your own -- he looked at me in disbelief. When I asked what he thought I should write about -- he pointed out that it was October and time for me to kick off my annual Halloween coverage.

When he's right, he's right. So I'm putting sushi on hold in favor of some "you might need these early" spook-day sites. (Sushi on Wednesday, I promise.)

• http://members.tripod.com/~Motomom/index-2.html. Here's a ghoulishly cool site from the King family, particularly Kimberly King, who offers up a slew of suggestions that have worked at her house. The proof is in the pictures. Take a glance at her recommendations and those of some fairly creative visitors to her site.

• www.coolest-kid-birthday-parties.com/halloween-party-ideas.html. This long address has some great ideas for hosting a ghostly get-together for your youngsters (or even for oldsters if your friends are still kids at heart.) You'll find samples and hints here, as well as links to a few affordable commercial sites.

• www.bhg.com/home/Halloween-party-Ideas.html. If you think Halloween parties (like Trix cereal) are only for kids, you might want to take a look at this "grown-ups only" party planner from Better Homes and Gardens. It's certainly a good one . (OK, there are suggestions here for little ones, too, but this page proves you don't have to stop celebrating just because you're too old to go trick-or-treating.)

• http://childparenting.about.com/cs/holidays/a/halloweenideas.htm. I know, another long one, but there are dozens of "jump-to" pages linked here, so I hope you'll forgive me. Some of these are themed (like parties for girls, low- or no-fright fun for extremely young children, family boo blasts and much more.) The advertising pop-ups will get old really quick, so I'd recommend turning on some kind of pop-up prevention if you have it (and suggest you load one of the dozens of free versions if you haven't got one in place yet). I promise it will save you all kinds of aggravation.

• www.amazingmoms.com/htm/halloween_party.htm. If the Amazing Mom's Halloween pages are even half as good as their Christmas pages and back-to-school pages, they're bound to be amazing. Not only are the ideas creative -- they take into consideration the time it takes to prepare and clean up afterwards. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for going all-out -- but if you can get a great effect with no mess, no muss and no fuss -- I say, "Do it!"

• http://members.aol.com/nebula5/hallocst.html. I always try to start the month with party plans and costume suggestions because they may take some time to work on. This site has taken a lot of the grief out of tracking down costume "how-tos" from all over the Web. From bums and brides to Britney Spears -- this one take the "howl" out of Howl-o-ween.

Jan Perry is a Kentucky-based freelance writer. She's always interested in great Halloween sites, so if you know of a good one, please send the address to her at SiteSeer2K@aol.com. If you do she will include it in a future column. (And if you don't, she'll send some ooooky, spooky icky something to haunt you until you do.)