Grapes and circles

This weekend was full. We had a funeral and a birthday party in one day on Saturday, so that was kind of a “circle of life” day. No sewing and no baking. Saturday was very full with the life circling and I am back to trying to observe the Sabbath with rest again. I have now memorized the Ten Commandments (one of the things on the list) and I either forgot or didn’t know that observing the Sabbath is actually a commandment. I took a nap, we spent some time outside and took a walk together as a family after dinner. Once we got home, I couldn’t take it anymore and I commenced to folding clothes, but I was really good the rest of the day.

The Ten Commandments (for those of you that don’t know)

1 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.
*not a problem, got that…

2 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.
* no idols, don’t even watch American Idol.

3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
* I work really hard on this one. It mostly comes out in times of fear or anger (aka- when I am in the car)

4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
* really have to work on this one and I did NOT know this was a commandment.

5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
* I try. I guess you would have to ask them.

6 “You shall not murder.
7 “You shall not commit adultery.
8 “You shall not steal.
* I guess most people consider these the 3 biggies and so do I. But I also think for many people (including myself) that makes them easy to keep. They all involve hurting another human being and I try to live my life in a way that inflicts the least damage on the bodies and souls of everyone (not just people I know).

9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
* Hate lying. Once I got past the pesky teenage habit of trying to be sneaky, there hasn’t been another need for it in all of my days (with the exception of the occasional gift related surprise lying or the “of course it was great/you look lovely/nice nice blah blah kind of lying).

10 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anythin
g that is your neighbor's.”
*In general, I don’t do a lot of donkey coveting. But I have very much been known to covet shoes, clothes, lifestyles, leisure time, etc. Working on that too.

Now the big surprise of the weekend was the grape harvest.

Can you believe it? I feel like a Gallo brother or something. I had given up on this vine. It was a bit puny when we moved in and I kept thinking that it would just die. We didn’t trellis it so it has become this behemoth ground cover. On Sunday I started poking around and boy howdy! Do we ever have grapes. The hubz and I decided that “ground grapes” must be the most brilliant and underutilized way of cultivating a grape harvest ever created. We will be eating grapes a lot in the coming days. I think grape jelly will be in order as well.

Peace and love