Author: Julie

Fels-Naptha Laundry Soap is Amazing!

I’ve used this soap more times than I can remember to remove stubborn stains from my clothes (like blood & tomatoe sauce).

The best way to treat a stain is to treat it quickly with some kind of prewash solution and then to launder it in cold water. Any kind of heat can set the stain in the fabric, making it near impossible to remove.

But I’ve used Fels-Naptha soap to remove stains even after I’ve accidentally run a garment through the wash and dried it in a hot dryer.

All I do is take the garment to the sink, run cold water over the stain, dampen the soap, rub it on the wet stained spot, and rub the fabric together several times, then rinse and repeat if necessary.

The tee-shirt shown in the picture below had a bad splotchy stain around the bottom of the v neckline (spaghetti sauce). I treated the stain with some kind of pretreatment spray and then ran it through the washing machine (on cold). The stain was still quite noticeable after the wash, so I hand scrubbed the tee with my old standby Fels-Naptha and Voilà! All Gone!

It works! Fels-Naptha Laundry Soap is phenomenal!

A Little Bit of Christmas

I’ve been a part of the Douglas County Chamber Singers for about 20 years. The Singers perform two concerts a year, at Christmas and in the Spring. I am one of just a handful of charter members who are still singing with the group.

We suspended the choral group when covid arrived in the United States, in 2020, a week before our Spring concert. Over the many long months of covid lockdown I missed singing with the group and wondered if we’d ever sing together again.

In September, the Singers regrouped and began rehearsing for our Christmas Concert. We have a new director, many new members, and a new name: the Sweetwater Singers.

If you are local, I hope to see you at our Christmas concert :

Douglas County Chamber Singers Announces 2022 – 2023 Season

In August the Douglas County Chamber Singers began rehearsing for our 2022 – 2023 season.

We are kicking off the season under the leadership of our new director Sandra Chandler. During the months of Covid, Vickie Orme, our founder and first director retired and moved to be closer to her family in Utah. We are fortunate that Sandra agreed to take over as our choral director.

During the summer the DCCS board met several times to review our charter and realign the group with our new director’s vision and goals and in the next few months we’ll be making some exciting announcements about the future direction of the group.

We’ve got two performances scheduled before the end of the year:

On October 21st we’ll join the West Side Winds Jazz Orchestra and Myrna Clayton in An Evening Of Music from Broadway Hits

You can purchase tickets to this performance by clicking this link.

Christmas Concert

December 9, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Douglasville First United Methodist Church
6167 Prestley Mill Road
Douglasville, GA 30134

The Christmas Concert performance is free and open to the public.

I hope to see you soon!

Julie

A Final Update on Bert

A few weeks ago, I took Bert to the vet because I was concerned about how thin he had become. He was still eating his pureed food, but he wasn’t maintaining his weight.

The vet examined him and told me his kidneys were failing. “There’s nothing short of a kidney transplant that will keep him alive. It’s just a matter of time…”

I suspected as much but the news still made me incredibly sad. At the time Bert was still able to get around okay, he still enjoyed sitting outside on the porch, nestling in one of the dog beds, and he still intimidated the girls. By all accounts he was still fine…at least HE thought so.

I brought him home and did my best to keep him comfortable and eating. Things went along as usual until last week. On Tuesday he needed some help getting around and I figured he was living his last few days.

Things turned very bad overnight and on Wednesday morning he died. I was with him at the time he passed and up until his final last stretch he was aware and alert. I am so thankful he died at home, surrounded by the things that brought him joy. And I am so glad I was there gently patting him as my remarkable boy – the boy who wandered into my yard 15 years ago, the boy who survived cancer of his mouth 5 years ago, the boy who came to dominate and hold his own amongst my two 80 pound dogs – passed over.

I don’t know what happens after death, but I sure hope to see Bert along with all my other beloved animal companions again some day.

Meet Charlotte

Charlotte joined our family on Saturday when Raven and I drove to a park in Lawrenceville to meet her.

She’s a happy, sweet girl who is currently unspayed and has poor household manners (think 5 month old puppy in a 70 lb big dog body).

We have a lot of training ahead, but Raven likes her and Bert will come around…eventually.

We hope to get her spayed ASAP.

 

Sanctuary

I dwell in a forest of oak and pine
Where deer trails converge to a single line
That leads to a spring and a pond beyond.
Each night I drift off to peaceful sleep with ease
As Nature plays a rustling breeze
Through the scrubby brush and the tops of trees.
And I awaken each morning to the cardinal’s trill
With a lifted heart and a silent thrill
In knowing I belong to such beauty and grace
As the forest of oak and pine in this place.

I transverse the thoroughfares of working life
Amidst a jungle of concrete and steel, where
So much energy is wasted in the busy-ness and strife
Of productive occupation;
And where I am tossed in a roiling sea
Of mindless conversation.
I armor myself with competency and success
To blunt the blows and mute the stress of meaningless proliferation.

And at the end of a long, hard day,
I am more than glad to be on my way
Home to this forest of solitude and rest
That enfolds me in its loving breast
And fills my heart with home.