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Ready for Thanksgiving? Do you have your turkey, your guests, and all of your other recipes in order? What are you waiting for? It's only a week away!

If you are entertaining at your apartment for Thanksgiving this year, you seriously better get to cracking. Trust me...you don't want to wait until the last minute to get things done because if you do...your life is going to get extremely difficult.

There are several steps that you can follow to insure that your Thanksgiving dinner will go off without a hitch and with the least stress as possible.

Get Your Guests In A Row- Check out your [BREAK] list of guests. Make a few calls and send out the emails. The first step to keeping your sanity is to find out who is coming and who isn't as soon as possible. Once you find out who is coming, divvy up the food bringing responsibility. It would be helpful to make a list of the traditional things needed and mark down who is bringing what, so that you don't get confused and end up with two dishes of dressing and missing a green bean casserole. Here is a quick sample list that may help you out:

-Turkey and Gravy (Typically that is the hosts responsibility)

-Mashed Potatoes

-Green Bean casserole

-Dressing/Stuffing

-Cranberry Sauce

-Pumpkin/Pecan Pie

-Rolls

-Salad

-Drinks

Shopping Spree- Hit the stores several days early. If you wait until the day or even a couple of days before Thanksgiving, you are truly asking for trouble. Not only will you run into a frantic, overcrowded, melee of destruction as soon as you hit that market parking lot, but you will more than likely not be able to find most of the stuff you need because the stores shelves will have already been picked dry by those who got their shopping done before you. Get to the store...Hurry! Time is running out.

The Turkey Prep- There is way more to a great Thanksgiving turkey than just popping the sucker in the oven for several hours, carving, and then gobbling it up. The proper prep of a turkey takes a little care. If you are going with a frozen turkey, you must keep in mind that when defrosting that frozen gobbler in the fridge, it takes an entire day for each 5 lbs. So if you have a 20 pound turkey...it's going to take 4 days to defrost.

Also, decide how you are going to cook the turkey and have all of the necessary tools ready. There are literally hundreds of ways to cook a turkey and each year new recipes and techniques are created. Generally, at 350 degrees, the roasting time of your turkey of average weight should be between 3 and 4 hours. Don't be intimidated, but it's more challenging than you'd think. Cook it too long and you end up with a dry turkey. Cook it too short and it could be unsafe to eat. The important thing to always keep in mind is that if the internal temperature of the turkey is between170 and 180 degrees, you should be safe and good to go.

For any turkey questions you can call Butterball's Turkey Talk Line at 1-800-Butterball

Clean, Inspect, Then Clean Again- If there is ever a time to make sure that you apartment is extra spotless and in perfect condition, it's now. No one wants to be sitting down to a hefty celebratory Thanksgiving dinner only to notice dust all over the backs of the chairs, or candy wrappers on the carpet. Clean like you are getting paid to do it. Make sure that your silver and glassware is polished and spotless. The kitchen and bathroom need to look institutionally clean. Make several runs with the vacuum to make sure you don't miss any spots. Dust in places you usually overlook.

Two Minute Warning - On the couple of days before your dinner, make sure to double check your lists and make sure that everything is covered. Run the vacuum over the carpet one last time. Check to make sure you are stocked up on everything from napkins and toilet paper to bottled water. Put everything in its proper place. And make that last minute store run...only if you have to...

Keep these simple steps in mind as you prepare for your awesome Turkey Day and you should be good to go. Thankfully, I am not entertaining this year. Woo hoo! No work for me!!! I'm sure I'll end up having to wash the dishes

Did you know....

- If a turkey looks up when it is raining it can drown

-The entire United States of America will go through 675 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving day alone

-The heaviest turkey ever raised was the size of a large dog at 86 pounds

-Turkeys' heads change colors when they become excited

-The five most popular ways to serve leftover turkey is as a sandwich, in stew, chili or soup, casseroles and as a burger

-"Big Bird's"feathers on Sesame Street are rumored to be from a turkey

Later Turkey's

For more information on apartment living, visit Apartment Home Living.com

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The healthiest way to cook bacon is in the microwave, but this is really effective only if you are cooking three to six slices, that is one or two adult servings. Place the bacon on a triple layer of paper towels on a microwave-safe plate, and cover with another double layer of paper towels. Microwave on high for two minutes, then check. Microwaving three slice for up to 3-1/2 minutes or six slices for up to 7 minutes will not create any carcinogens. Clean the microwave immediately after cooking bacon unless you like the lingering smell.

Frying or sautéing bacon is the only way you can cook slab bacon. Keep the heat set at low or medium. You can toss a lump of bacon in the frying pan and allow the heat the separate the slices, but you will need to separate them in the pan as soon as they begin to sizzle. Time to fry may be 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how much bacon you cook.

Soaking the bacon in water reduces the production of potential carcinogens, but you do not need this step if you cook the bacon slowly over low to medium heat and you stop cooking before it is burnt. Because of the high temperatures involved, you should not roast or broil bacon. Exposure to temperatures of 450-500º F (225-250º C) with exposure to air creates carcinogens.

Boiling bacon is a healthy way to prepare the meat. It creates no carcinogens, and it reduces salt content. Boiled bacon occasionally appears on British breakfast tables, but in the States it is reserved for seasoning vegetables.

As for the bacon-in-a-bag product you can find sitting on a non-refrigerated grocery shelf, I'm not sure I would touch it, much less eat it. Weeks and weeks of room temperature storage in a bag that may or may not be sealed may not result in food contamination, but it's bound to create free radicals.

There is, however, a sure-fire way to get around the problems of cooking bacon.

Much of the non-English speaking world eats bacon raw. If you are a guest in a German or Danish home or hotel and you are offered raw bacon for your breakfast, don't shrink in terror of parasites. Despite what you have read or heard, pork products in the European Union do not contain parasites (and, yes, I have seen raw European pork under a microscope), and you would also be safe in Australia or New Zealand. If you offered raw pork on your safari, however, try eating breakfast vegetarian."

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