Anyone that knows me, knows that I like my food two ways: on my plate or on my television.

Currently, and in perfect time for Thanksgiving, I have been nonstop binge watching the Food Network Channel on Netflix. This is where the idea of a "Friendsgiving" came into mind and I immediately agreed to make the turkey. I have personally never cooked a turkey on my own, usually just snapped pictures of my dad doing it and then posing with it for my mom, but if they can cook a perfect turkey with twelve sabotages, missing three fingers, or tofu as the mystery ingredient; I CAN DO IT!

The day of, yes the day of, I check my bank account and I noticed I had $65.72 in my account and I decided to go with a "brown sugar glaze" turkey. So here I am at ALDI looking at turkey prices... $19..$20... $30... not in my budget. By this time I'm trying to talk myself out of buying a turkey and going with a chicken (already thawed), then saying "oops I got a chicken by mistake" but knowing good and well that I bought it on purpose.

I'm forever thankful for the lady at ALDI for talking me out of it and showing me that I can get a turkey for a little as $14, cue the inside crying because I still think that's too much. I now have Tyler the Turkey in the basket, celery, carrots, apple cider vinegar and brown sugar. Time is 2:40 pm and dinner is being served at 8 pm.

I rush home, put my turkey in the sink to defrost it and I'm talking sweet nothings to it. One hour later, it feels thawed so I start chopping my vegetables, julienne, and get them in the pan, 4:00 pm. Here's where the fun part begins, I open my turkey and it felt thawed, until I start trying to take the insides out and it's as hard as a rock. However, that does not stop me from continuing to pull them out and get this turkey cooking. Once all of it is out, I try to figure out how exactly to tie this turkey like I've seen people do on television. Needless to say, it didn't work out. So I start to wing it, no pun intended. I put butter on my turkey, a little salt and pepper, then throw it in the oven for 30 minutes, 4:40. I start to make the glaze and once the 30 minutes are up, I look at my turkey... it's actually cooking. I throw the glaze on, a little at a time, and that's when I realized I read the directions wrong... Before I was supposed to put the glaze on, I had to cook it for another hour. Thankfully two of my closest friends were at my house that kept me calm and helped me make it through this turkey haze I was in. So we put it back in for another 45 minutes and just prayed it would get done.

Time is now 6:40 pm and we wanted to leave the house by 7, we shove the turkey back in the oven for another 20 minutes and just go for it. By 7 o'clock I pull my turkey out of the oven and it looks great. Brown on top, the breast is cooked perfectly and I'm pretty much smiling ear to ear because I just cooked my very first turkey!

We pile up in the car, we make our way to the first Friendsgiving! We pull up to the house about 7:30 and I start to show off Tyler (the turkey) and we realize that the turkey is not cooked all the way through. Luckily, not everyone was there yet so we put it back in the oven and let it cook till everyone arrived. Slowly people were coming and that's how slowly my turkey was cooking. It would not get done! Back to the turkey gods I go to pray that I am not about to kill all my friends, at our first Friendsgiving.

Everyone just kept telling me, "Don't worry, it'll get done," "It's your first time cooking a turkey don't worry." But man, I was just trying to do math in my head to see if my father's insurance company could handle six people in the hospital from food poisoning, Time is now 8:30, remember we were supposed to eat by 8, and my turkey finally has reached 165 degrees in three different places! TIME TO EAT! Everyone by this point has finished the spinach dip and started on the dinner rolls, so we were ready.

We line up to eat. We got mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, TURKEY, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce and (homemade) potato salad. We ate like QUEENS. By the time dinner was over, we were all too full to complain and watching Magic Mike XXL. The perfect line up, for a perfect Friendsgiving.

I could not have made it through Friendsgiving without the main ingredient, friends. And I certainly can not make it through life without the group of people I have. I have been so blessed with my family and my friends, that now I don't have to think when someone asks, "What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?"

Because the answer is; friends, family, and the Food Network Channel.