My Blessed Life, and some good recipes for around the house

I was sitting here drinking my coffee a few days ago, looking up the mountain at the beautiful fall colors and thinking how lucky I am. Then I realized its not luck. I have been blessed from birth to today. The Bible says we are conceived by God before our parents conceived us. I was born into a Christian family, went to church from likely a few weeks old and lived among all my close relatives from the beginning. My grandad died the day I was due from pneumonia, I never got to know him sadly, I am sure he was a very special man. Mom and dad married and had moved in with her mom, so when I was born, I had 3 people to hug and cuddle and read to me. When mom's sister married, she and her hubby lived at Gram's too. Always a lap, a playmate and lots of love. We moved when my second sis was on the was and we ran out of room. But always close. We could walk to Great Grams, assorted cousins etc and when there was need in the family they were always there to help out. When I had polio, cousins Claude and Genevieve were first to come and help set up the bed and equipment I needed. Hospitals were full due to the epidemic. To this day, I am grateful for the life I have lived, places I have been and seen and the family I have. My kids have all turned out to be loving caring people, could not be prouder of them. And I have such wonderful grand-kids and even 2 great grand kids that are the best. One of those grandsons, Paul, put Pat's name on a wall at Wrigley field after the Cubs finally won this year, Pat would have loved that, he wanted that win all his life. Oh yes, I fell out of grace at times, when I was young and foolish but always came back and cling to what I hold dear in life. And yes I am opinionated about a lot of things. My upbringing taught me the Bible is always right, and we don't change God's word. So the things we are told we MUST accept are not what we were taught. I accept people for what they are, but the sins I do not. I do not watch shows on tv that use bad language, mom always said people that cussed had no skills with words and did not know better, and she was a teacher. I do not like blood and guts and violence, we are teaching our kids way too much of that. If I watch tv, its the stations that run the old stuff, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, McHales Nave, Designing Women, and the few stations that carry family things, like Inspiration and Hallmark. Most of the time I have music playing, it calms and soothes and I love it. Have a good library of CDs, oldies and classical. I am very happy on this quiet Mountain, once again I have been led to a place I love. On another subject, I had some nasty scratches in my table legs and cabinets, hit them with my wheel chair a lot. So here is a great way to fix them. In a glass jar put 3/4 cup of oil, I use sunflower as it's not sprayed, and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. Shake. Use a paper towel to wipe onto the damaged areas, do not wipe off but do not apply too heavy, it soaks in and hides the bad spots. Can not believe how well it worked. I also made my first round of laundry detergent this week, a big box, 4 lbs, of washing soda, a big box of borax and a bar of grated Fels Naptha soap. Smells nice, works well, easy on plumbing and cheap, about 7 cents per load, use one heaping tablespoon unless very soiled , then maybe a tad more. It is much cooler now, think the days of 80s and 90s are over for a time. Looking forward to holing up and keeping warm for a spell. Socking up on beans, rice and shelf stable stuff in case we get stuck inside for a while. Hope you are well, and enjoying the changing seasons, be well.