Thou Shalt Not Covet, But Sometimes I Do

It's one of the 10 commandments. It's the last one, which doesn't make it unimportant, but at least moves it on down the list. Right?

Thou shalt not covet. In other words, don't want what belongs to someone else.

Yet our society is full of coveting, if not what belongs to someone else specifically, then what we do not have. We're practically programmed by television to want more, better, different, to never be satisfied. Never mind that it goes against the basic ideas drilled into us from an early age in Sunday School. This time of year nearly every commercial break urges us to covet, to acquire, to want more and better. A good example are those in which someone gets a new car, but looks longingly at a different new car driving by. Seriously? If you give me a new car I will not complain, as long as I don't have to make payments on it.

I'm probably as guilty as a lot of people. But I don't covet someone else's husband, house or car. I wouldn't swap what I have for what someone else has with all the baggage that goes along with it.

I wouldn't want a bigger house with the monthly mortgage that would bring. Even if it were paid for, there's the increased cost of utilities, maintenance and taxes. Someone else's husband seems too good to be true; well, he probably is and mine is darn near perfect for me, thank you. And cars, well, I do miss having a convertible, but I wouldn't swap my paid for SUV for one I suddenly had to make payments on.

Often the things we covet, or desire for a more accurate term when we don't necessarily want a specific item, come with a lot of things we may not think about when we're doing the actual coveting. When we fall into that trap, we can make ourselves unhappy reaching for something that, when we have it fills us with regret or perhaps a long-term obligation like a hefty car payment or mortgage. No thank you.

What I find myself coveting is something so innocent and celebratory as a Facebook status. And I feel really bad when I do it.

After a hard week of tending dogs and children, facing a day of dog grooming and no real break in sight, I've found myself reduced to tears by someone else's plans for the weekend. It's a terrible reaction to their joy and how full my life is, but it still happens. Blame it on exhaustion and bad timing, but down deep it's still something ugly. It's jealousy and coveting, wishing my day was someone else's and their day was mine.

Often their status updates are something I once did and took for granted as they may do. Going out to breakfast and then a day of shopping, an evening out with the girls, or, heaven forbid, a trip to the beach.

I'll be honest, we have carryout food most every weekend for one or two meals. We go out to eat maybe once or twice a month. That's it. I miss not worrying about money and calories. Shopping is a trip for groceries or some serious time on Amazon or Ebay, it's not a recreational activity unless I'm wandering around Goodwill or its near equivalent. I cannot remember the last vacation we were able to take, but I know it was before I left my next to the last job, so lets say seven or eight years, minimum. It may have been a beach trip the fall we got married, which would put it at 10 years ago.

So, yes, I sometimes covet, but at the heart of it I realize it isn't their lives I covet, it's the life I once had. Yet, at the same time, I'm so glad to not have that life any more that those little bits and pieces that I miss are hardly worth the time it takes to miss them. And it's only during those really already blue moments that I even think of them at all.

When it comes right down to it, I know that my life is full of things that other people covet as well.

If I make it to my workout classes or even walk dogs or workout with a YouTube video in my living room, there are people who wish they were physically able to exercise, or had the motivation to do it.

When I post a picture of my grandchildren, there are a lot of people who wish they had grandchildren of their own, or who wish they were able to spend so much time with them and be such a big part of their lives.

If I brag or complain about my children, there are people who miss the children they never had, or the children that they love who are no longer with them.

Even ifI talk about a busy day in my kennel when I'm exhausted by everything I've had to get done, there are undoubtedly people who wish they were self employed and suffering the same exhaustion.

When I feel myself falling into that coveting mode, wishing for things I don't have, I need to remind myself of those facts, those things I still take for granted that are blessings many people don't enjoy. We might all take a minute to think of our lives and Facebook posts in that light sometimes. It may make us appreciate what we have a whole lot more.

I might also try to be sincere when I congratulate my friends on what they have, instead of mentally begrudging them the things I miss or still want. That part of the equation may take a little more work, and its success will probably depend on how tired and frustrated I am at any given time.

But it's a worthy goal and perhaps will help me turn my occasional covetousness into genuine gratefulness, for myself and those I care about as well.

What to Do With The Leftover Turkey

Thanksgiving was two days ago and, unless you're a big fan of turkey salad, odds are good you're looking at a lot of leftovers that you may not have a taste for.
Be honest, we can only recycle the holiday meal so many times. Leftover turkey, dressing, gravy and cranberry salad may be good once or twice, and most of us will only eat so many turkey sandwiches. Then there's all that darn dark meat. Do you know no one in my family ate any dark meat off the holiday bird? That's too much to waste.
You may be tempted to toss it, especially if you didn't go ahead and get it off the bones while it was warm. Trust me, warm and greasy beats cold and greasy hands down. But if you saved the meat with some vague plan of a future recipe, it's still crucial to do something with it before it becomes fit for only the garbage can. (No, don't feed it to the dog. You don't want to clean that up!)
Last year I was smart enough to freeze mine shortly after the holiday, but discovered when I pulled a bag out the other day that I hadn't planned ahead well enough. While my recipe called for 1.5 cups, I had at least two or three times that amount all froze together in a quart freezer bag. It was all or nothing and too much turkey ruined a pretty good soup recipe.
So my recommendation is find the recipes you'd like to eat -- not necessarily today or tomorrow's meals, but at some point -- and cut up the meat you don't eat by the time you get tired of it, and/or all the dark meat, and put it in freezer bags in the correct amounts. Since I didn't have room in my refrigerator for a bird, I did all that shortly after the family meal and I had 10 cups of dark meat to freeze. Most recipes call for 2 to 3 cups, so I did two 3-cup bags and two 2-cup bags.

If we don't polish off the white meat by the first of the week, I'll probably cut it up as well. I will not be boiling the bones for stock. I'm not that dedicated. My chickens enjoy the extra protein and it is funny in a twisted way to watch them peck the carcass clean.
Of course, saving the meat is only half the challenge, so I've gathered a few leftover recipes as well. You can also find plenty of others at cooking websites, with a simple search for leftover turkey recipes. If you're like me, it's always a little better if you know someone has actually prepared them, and I have cooked three out of four of these, although I don't have pictures to prove it.

My absolute favorite for going on 30 years has been a turkey casserole recipe that features cheese, Bisquick, soup and sour cream. You can make this as one dish, or divide it like pot pies, although I usually opt for the single dish preparation. I found it while doing a cooking feature at my first newspaper job and have been preparing it regularly since.
TURKEY PIE
3 c cut up turkey
1/2 c milk
1/2 c sour cream (or Greek yogurt)
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
1 c Bisquick
3/4 c milk
1 egg
2 c shredded cheddar cheese
1. Preheat oven to 375 and grease casserole dish.
2. Combine and heat first four ingredients to boiling and spoon into casserole dish.
3. Combine Bisquick, milk and egg. Pour over hot turkey mixture. Sprinkle with cheese.
4. Bake uncovered until top is set and slightly brown, about 20-25 minutes.

The soup recipe I ruined with too much turkey is usually great and is a crock pot recipe, so you can leave it to cook while you're busy. It's got a Mexican flavor influence with cumin and cayenne, so it's a good spicy meal served with cheese, sour cream and tortilla chips.
CROCK POT TURKEY SOUP
1 1/2 c turkey (2 c would be ok, but don't overdo it)
1 quart canned tomatoes
1 onion
1 T lime juice
1/2 t cumin
1 can corn
4 c chicken broth
4 oz can green chili peppers
4 cloves garlic
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 can black beans
salt and pepper
Combine and cook all ingredients on low for 8 hours.

I haven't made this next recipe in years, but liked it enough to copy it onto a recipe card and save it.
TURKEY CASSEROLE
1 sm pkg frozen broccoli, cooked
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
1/2 8 oz. bag bread crumb stuffing
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/2 c mayo
1 egg
2-3 c chopped, cooked turkey
Combine all ingredients reserving some stuffing for topping in casserole dish. Stir. Put remaining stuffing on top. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

This last one I have not tried, but found on a printout card from Bisquick and it sounds tasty and super easy.
IMPOSSIBLE TURKEY PIE
2 c cut up, cooked turkey
1 small jar sliced mushrooms, drained
1/2 c sliced green onions
1/2 t salt
1 c shredded Swiss cheese
1 1/2 c milk
3/4 c Bisquick
3 eggs
Heat oven to 400 and lightly grease 10-inch pie plate. Sprinkle turkey, mushrooms, onions, salt and cheese in pie plate. Beat remaining ingredients until smooth. Pour into pie plate. Bake until golden brown and knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before cutting.

Juggling the Holidays

It starts about this time every year, or maybe even a little earlier, the complicated dance involving work, family, self and the holidays.

When do you have days off? Who wants you to come to what gatherings? How much running can you do and still maintain your sanity? Which gatherings do you really want to go to and how do you gracefully get out of the others? How do you swap out your work schedule to be there for the things you really want to attend?

I know for a lot of people the work schedule isn't a big deal. You don't work on Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's Day because it's a holiday. But for most of the working adults in my family, that isn't the case. My daughter works in emergency services and you can bet there's never a day when they close the place down. My son-in-law is in retail and days off are extremely limited. My new self-employed status as a dog boarder means I can look forward to one of my busiest times of the year each Thanksgiving and that week's work will help see me through some of the leaner days to come -- no way I'm shutting down. My husband is the only one who can count on days off.

Of course, if you have a job you have to work when you are scheduled. That involves negotiations in the workplace because everyone wants a day or some portion of the day off during those times. Some people can be downright intractable about what times they need for their personal holidays, without even looking at anyone else's family needs. If you've never had to adjust your celebrations to your work schedule, that first time can be a shocker.

My family, however, has been adjusting for years. When I was small we never had Santa Claus because my dad worked a job that didn't give him time off on Christmas morning. We celebrated Christmas Eve for several early years. Disrupting the holidays was a tradition I continued when I finally found a job in journalism. While the small town paper where I started out didn't publish on Christmas and provided a lot of leeway for holiday celebrations, someone still had to be on call. I remember toting a police scanner home when it was my rotation and spending at least one Christmas Eve on the side of the road at a bad accident scene. The family gathering we were supposed to attend took place without us. By the time I worked at a daily paper, we were accustomed to tweaking our holiday schedule to include producing a newspaper. Thanksgiving celebrations took place when we were off, even if that meant it was on Black Friday or a late dinner instead of lunch. My daughter grew up flexible on the holidays, although not being on hand Christmas morning with three little ones in the house is not an option she's willing to consider.

Once the workplace lottery is over, or when you already know what days you'll have off, that's when the trickiest part of the holidays sets in. When you know you've only got a set amount of time and a long list of family obligations, determining whether and when and where to go is as tricky as negotiating a minefield. We know the fallout from making a bad choice can have family members irritated until the next holiday season when we have a chance to make it up.

That whole family negotiation isn't one you worry about as a child when you're toted haplessly from place to place, or even as a teen when you don't get a voice in the excursions. Even when you're out on your own, odds are good you'll show up where your parents do. But when you have a partner, oops, there's a whole different realm of celebrations in the equation. And if you have children, then divorce, another layer of complications.

Gifts aside, it's no wonder the holidays become such a stressful time.

Folks are more likely to wind up in a serious argument over where to spend Christmas Eve or how many New Year's Eve parties to attend than they are about how much money to spend on gifts or how to pay for them. Stressing over the perfect holiday or our dysfunctional families or what we think we should be doing that we aren't adds even more unnecessary pressure.

With all that laying ahead of us, it's no wonder some of us take a deep breath before the holidays and fight the urge to run for cover.

I know I put myself through the paces for years, generally forgetting about what I really wanted out of the holiday. Did I want to run to the (former) in-laws' for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning? Once that obligation was over, did I really want to put in an appearance at all my family get-togethers? Had all those years of being dragged along when I'd rather have sat home with my new things made me unable to just say no?

My daughter, God bless her independent thinking, was jumping through the same hoops being held up by two families a bit more scattered than mine had been when she decided after a nerve-wrecking snowbound trip from Boone and too many holiday trips up and down Fancy Gap Mountain, that things needed to change. Since she held the trump cards (the all-too-adorable grandbabies), families have pretty well fallen in line. The Boone trip doesn't try to mesh with Christmas Eve or Christmas day, but instead is a weekend earlier so they have plenty of time to spend with family there. No more trips to my mom's Christmas Eve (even if she manages to have the evening off). They come to my house instead because her logic was that she always spent Christmas Eve at her grandma's and she wanted her girls to do the same. On Christmas Day, if she doesn't have to work, she doesn't make her girls go anywhere. Last year they stayed at home and enjoyed the day and we drove over and had lunch with them.

While the new arrangement means I've taken on Christmas Eve at my house, it's not a big thing and it's close family (the Fancy Gap portion comes down the mountain now) and I get to spend it with some of my favorite people. Christmas morning is quiet at home with no one we have to visit, but it was peaceful last year. And while I do regret not seeing my in-laws who are in Asheville, it's my work instead of a scheduling conflict that keeps us from traveling during the holidays. I'm hoping we can find a day to make the trip ahead of time instead.

The fact of the matter is the holidays are just dates. Thanksgiving changes every year to meet some schedule most of us don't comprehend, and Jesus was not born on Dec. 25. Our celebration of the events is what is really important and, beyond meeting the Christmas expectations we set for our children, they can be as flexible as we make them. They can also be as enjoyable or as hectic as we let them become. We can have Thanksgiving on Black Friday, Christmas at home instead of on the road, New Year's without the parties.

Instead of driving ourselves insane to meet the expectations of others or to keep some family tradition that has lost its meaning, what if we stopped to think about what we really want to do to make the holiday special for ourselves. Do we want to join the family in a big celebration, or would we just as soon not hang around the alcoholic relative, or the one who complains constantly? Would we just as soon skip the office party, or cut out early to avoid bad politics? Do we really have to show up at every gathering and drag our children in and out of the car a dozen times because everyone wants to see them, or would we like to stay home and have an open door policy so that if they really want to see them, they feel welcome to make the trip themselves?

We create a lot of the holiday stress ourselves and we can assert ourselves and say no. Believe me, it will get easier over time.

What makes the holidays special isn't seeing everyone, but the light in a special someone's eyes when we walk through the door or the smile on a child's face when they take in the gifts beneath the tree. It isn't about doing it all, but doing what counts for you and the people you genuinely care the most about. The adjustment may be a little rocky, but it can bring more meaningful, less stressful holidays in the years to come.

Me, I'm looking forward to turkey on Black Friday, Christmas morning at home with cinnamon rolls and coffee, and breathing a little easier because I know that nothing, including those two events, is set in stone.

A Month of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is just weeks away and we've already begun thinking about the meal, the family gathering, the travel, and maybe the extra calories we'll need to burn -- probably in that order.

I'm as guilty as anyone.

I ran across a bag of frozen turkey in the freezer this weekend and realized I needed to make a quick pot of soup and get that out of the way before the new bird came along.

Yesterday the girls and I worked on a Thanksgiving/fall craft. No, we don't manage that as often as I'd like. I'm not really Super Ma, but the baby was sleeping and we needed an activity that didn't involve running around the house and screaming. So we cut and colored and glued a turkey and tree, leaves and feathers. It was about the turkey, which is the meal, not the thanks, which is the reason.

Thanksgiving, if my school lessons and Wikipedia are to be believed, originated as a feast of thanksgiving for good harvest, a feast of hope that there would be enough to survive the winter.

While we've retained the feast aspect of the celebration, for most of us in America food is such an easy resource that we would never dream of giving thanks for the harvest (unless we happen to be the farmer for whom it pays the bills). Even those of us who have gone hungry, or who take time to be thankful for a meal, are more often thankful for eating it than for the fact that the food itself exists to be easily available -- consider that blessing in the light of famines and mass starvation in other parts of the world.

Whether we give thanks to God or not, or even believe, all of us (at least all of us who have Internet and can read this blog) have things we are, or should be, thankful for every day. While we may give thanks in some way for the big things -- the cancer scare that wasn't, surviving a near miss traffic accident, the new car/job/house -- most of us, me included, don't always take the time to be thankful, to feel blessed, for the everyday things.

We take them for granted, which literally would mean we are granted these things so there is no need to be thankful. And yet, if those things are taken away we would realize how valuable they were and that they were not guaranteed.

I don't know where it started, or when, but across Facebook and perhaps other social media as well, there is an effort to counteract that disregard with 30 days of thanksgiving. I think it's a wonderful challenge and a wonderful way to remind myself of the things for which I don't often take time to give thanks.

Sure, it's easy some days, especially in early November to rattle off a list of things. Loved ones, homes, health, work, etc., are the things most of us check off our thankful list pretty quickly. I know I'm working my way through that list myself.

But even in giving thanks for what I consider basic necessities, I don't think I really take time to acknowledge, even to myself, how much of a blessing those things are, how many people there are who do not have those things. While I've already been thankful for my husband, grandchildren, work, and health, among other things, I haven't really thought about the people who don't have those things or whose thanksgiving is saddened by the memory of having and losing those things. Shining that harsh light on my blessings makes me doubly thankful and makes me feel a little guilty.

So going forward through the month of thanksgiving, I'm going to try to do that as well. I want to not only recount my blessings in a way that makes me think about them and treasure them, but realize that even the things that spring easily to mind aren't universal. I want to remember that the things I sometimes take for granted when I post a status update are the things other people may envy, just as I sometimes am envious of my friends who are blessed differently from me.

And I want to try to cultivate more of a sense of being blessed instead of entitled. Because even though I am blessed, I do realize how quickly life can change and that those blessings can be gone very quickly.

I want to be thankful every day for what I am given, not just once a year during a Thanksgiving prayer. I want to more prayerfully acknowledge my blessings on a daily basis, even if it's an informal "thank you" for a walk in the sunshine, the joy of hearing a baby's laugh, a daughter's chatty call in the middle of the morning, or a husband's warm embrace when we are both finally home.

I'll start with 30 days of mindfully giving thanks and see where it goes from there.