HEY. I turned my frown upside down. Neat.

I just wrote an entire post about the entire sad state of my union. That I'm mad at the world that I have to budget. That I'm upset that it's looking like I will never ever get another raise at my current job, despite my increasing amount of experience. That I have been having bouts of insomnia and allergy attacks on the regular.

I deleted the entire post.

While I'm not going to make a "things for which I am thankful" list as many of us bloggers are prone to do (myself included, circa 2010), I do want to leave a more positive message on the day before Thanksgiving. My life is not so bad.

I might whine about a budget, but that means I have money to pay my bills. Learning to distinguish between needs and wants is a challenge, but I am slowly coming educating myself. I might not get a raise this year, but I have a job and some semblance of job security. I might not sleep well, but Benadryl is available in my medicine cabinet. Zyrtec too for the insatiable sneezing.

Really, my life doesn't suck.

Isn't that all we want?

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends and family. Thank you for being a part of my life that doesn't suck.

I DID IT!

So, much discussion was had (on my part) about my Thanksgiving-day chore this year. You see, I was to make the turkey, arguably THE most important part of the Thanksgiving day feast. Of course, I will always make the argument that gravy trumps all, but for the NORMAL people, I believe that turkey is THE THING to eat. In any event, I had never made a whole turkey before yesterday. In fact, I was wholly unprepared for the DISGUSTING NAKED BIRD that popped out of its neat little packaging.

Okay, so I may have screamed when I had to pull the neck out of the bird's cavity. Sickness. So gross. I like to make meat when it doesn't look like it used to be an animal. True story. My most memorable thing that happened was this little interaction. I had heard a rumor that the giblets would be hiding in the bird. After I shrieked at the whole neck popping out, I realized: I had to go back in there and pull of the giblets (if any).

I took a deep breath and PLUNGED my hand into the wide hole. I found nothing. But then I was scared. I had read that if there were giblets in there and you did not remove them, the plastic bag containing them would melt and ruin not only the giblets, but the ENTIRE turkey. I could not risk that happening. Oooooh, P.I.C.

"You need to come here and stick your hand in the turkey. I want to make sure that there are no giblets in there. I kinda freaked out at the neck so I my feeling of the turkey's insides was very fast. Please double check for me."

P.I.C.: "I can't, I just put on hand lotion." (THIS IS FACTUAL. HE ACTUALLY SAID THIS.)

"DO IT before I SCREAM."

P.I.C. removed his sweater, his watch and rolled up his sleeves. At this point, the turkey was sitting in the sink after the neck extraction and looking all dead bird-like. He walks over to the turkey rather cautiously.

P.I.C. "Oh my GOD, F.A. You can just look down in the hole. There are NO giblets in there. See?"

Really? Oh. You CAN look down the turkey's hole. And nope, I don't see any giblets too. TURKEY IS GOOD TO COOK. Good thing P.I.C. was there to back me up, right?

I had been diligently watching the turkey experts on WGN Morning News all week, so I knew that the butterball lady had told me "NO BASTING." So I didn't. I had the oven preheated, I heaved the bird, named Tom, duh, onto the roasting pan, sprayed him with a little olive oil and put a light dusting of seasoning on him. Into the oven he went.

I had advised EVERYONE, "DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN FOR FOUR HOURS." I wanted that bird to have its own massive roasting area without disruption. See, I took the 1-800-Butterball lady very seriously. Of course, I did many random "turn the oven light on and check on if it looks good" passes.

After four and a half hours, Tom was done. Brown and beautiful. (I feel that you should make the trumpet noise in your head as you look at this photograph of my lovely first made turkey.

 If Tom could still speak, this is what he is saying in this photograph: "Hey. I USED TO be Tom. I might be beautiful and brown, but that's not gonna stop me from trying to fly away from this crazy motley crew of Thanksgiving celebrators in their eating pants."

It's beautiful right? It tasted as good as it looks, I promise. I was like a small child on Christmas who had just received the most lovely present in the world. Jumping up and down, I kept on saying "I DID IT, I DID IT!!!" (I have no capacity to act cool or calm in these situations. NONE.)

Luckily, my friend's stepdad was on hand to carve the big boy up. Despite my careful attention to Stephanie Izard's demonstration earlier that week, I was not about to butcher Tom. Nope. He cut all the bird up and it was marvelous. Only one thing: He pulled me aside and pointed to a small, rather beat looking paper bag. "F.A., the next time you cook a turkey, you can just pull these out." WHAT? Yes, kids, the giblets were STILL in the turkey. Oops. Luckily, they were in a PAPER bag, so cooking them inside the bird did not ruin anything. Something HAD to go wrong. I'm grateful that it wasn't anything serious.

On a sad note, the gravy? Not as great as I'd hoped. I suppose that I shall have to perfect that aspect of the meal.

Here's the spread:

Looks pretty good right? See that corn casserole? That's P.I.C.'s specialty. And it's DELICIOUS.

Everyone ate and I'm pretty sure everyone was happy. Please note that I did not make everything in the spread. Everyone had their share in the efforts, and not photographed was the marvelous salad with homemade dressing that was a part of the meal.

I love Thanksgiving.

As an aside note, TRADER JOE'S, really? You say "Make sure you pull out giblets, if any." How about you just TELL me that YES, there are GIBLETS in here. GET THEM OUT.

Hey bandwagon, 'sup?

I cannot RESIST jumping on this "Things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving" bandwagon. I do enough griping about my first world problems, I appreciate any way to gain some perspective of my honestly pretty awesome life. I probably could spend my entire day coming up with things for which I am grateful, so I am narrowing it down to my top ten (well, top ten for today.) Without further ado, here is my version of that list.

1. I am so, so grateful that I have a family that is amazing. I don't see them nearly enough, but I know they are there for me throughout all thick and thin. I love you all.

2. On that same token (I almost just wrote toke...ooops!), I am grateful for my friends. They really are the family I get to see all the time. Whether they are friends I have had for a very long time, or newer friends, all have become an integral part (and there, I just typed party...no shock there) of my life.

3. To my P.I.C., you really do make my life better just by being in it. You put up with so much shenanigans because of me. I can't imagine life without you.

4. TURKEY and GRAVY. I don't even have to EXPLAIN that one. Both are awesome. Fingers crossed that I deliver the goods tomorrow.

5. I get a real vacation this year. Yep. I'm still bragging. Can't help it, but here it is. Not only do I have the opportunity to GO to a completely incredible place, I have the vacation days and a work that will allow me to take SEVEN DAYS (IN A ROW) away from work. Happiness.

6. Digital cameras make me happy. Photographs are my favorite way to capture memories since I seem to forget things quite often, so I take a lot of pictures. Digital cameras make that easier.

7. Oxford (my cat, not the city, although the city AND the university are pretty cool. How do you think my cat got his name?). He might puke and be a jerk most of the time and have a weird affinity for licking plastic bags, but he's a great pet and not one day passes where I don't say, "OMG, look at him. He's so cute."

8. My space heater at work. Seriously. Does it need to be FORTY degrees in here near round. My space heater makes me feel lovely. Oh yeah, and cuz it turns off when I kick it over, I know it's safe. (Please don't tell my bosses I have one. They would confiscate it, and that would make me sad. And cold.)

9. My naturally blond hair. I always have an excuse when I say something dumb. ALWAYS. (And, for what it's worth, shut up if you think that my attitude perpetuates the "dumb blond" stereotype. That is just dumb people. PERIOD.) My inherent laziness means I will not color my hair. I am grateful that it is a decent enough shade to not HAVE to color it. Yet.

10. This blog and my followers. Honestly, after a childhood and teenage years of writing every single thing down that happened in my life, I didn't write for a long time. Starting this blog (well, this incarnation of that) has been one of my most favorite things I have done in the past year or so. I'm grateful that I have this outlet to vent or just blab. I'm even more thankful that there are people who actually READ my inane drivel.

THANK YOU!

I wish everyone a very happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Two days til GRAVY day.

Oh, pardon me. THANKSGIVING. But allow me to be completely frank with you. For my entire life, I have had one very strong belief about the Thanksgiving holiday: Anything put on my plate is an excuse to eat more gravy. Gravy is truly the nectar of the gods in my tryptophan-soaked mind. Brown, luscious, covering the most mundane Stove Top of stuffings, gravy truly makes everything better.

I was spoiled growing up. You see, my grandma makes the world's best gravy. It is a proven truth. Much of my childhood was spent fighting Auntie Em for a first taste of Grandma's groovy gravy (oooh, I know how I shall market it if ever I have the chance!). She was determined that she was the "official gravy tester." I begged to differ. I suppose, given her seniority in the house, she was really the original official tester. (PLEASE NOTE, AUNTIE EM, I WILL NEVER ADMIT THIS TO YOUR FACE.)

Two Thanksgivings ago, I was charged with the task: make the gravy for the "Orphan" Thanksgiving my friends and I had assembled. (No, we are not all orphans, we just chose to stay in the city rather than traveling home for the holiday.) I called my grandma, listened to her instructions and took copious notes. Y'know what? It just wasn't the same. I was very sad. Last year, I don't even remember the gravy for the Thanksgiving feast I had prepared for myself and P.I.C. That can't be good.

This year, I have been charged with making the actual turkey for our "Functional Friend Thanksgiving Feast" (working title). Therefore, I shall try my hand at the gravy once again. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. Gravy can rectify just about anything. Dry turkey, canned cranberry sauce (OK, so this is my favorite) or stuffing, which I don't even like.

Please pray for me, and my friends. I want to give them a gravy...I mean, TURKEY, for which they can truly be thankful.