The last couple of months have been quite a trial at the Atkins home, leaving no time for luxuries like writing blog updates.
Without going into lots of personal detail, suffice it to say that the senior Atkins Boy has had lots of CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, X-rays, and blood tests along with a short try-out of crutches and a wheelchair. Definitely not fun for any of us.
The good news is that new medications are helping. Carl is on his feet once again although not quite up to assuming his usual duties of shopping for groceries, mowing the back yard, and taking books back to the library.
And within the past week Georgia has had what we're calling our hundred-year rain. After four years of severe drought, it seems that we're now making up for it in less than a week. Fourteen to twenty inches of rain simply cannot be absorbed when it arrives within the space of two or three days. Guess what. When rain has nowhere else to go, it comes into your home.
The middle Atkins Boy has been vacuuming water out of his lower level den for the past four days. After blowing out our old shop vac, Scott discovered that the modern replacements are WAY more efficient at sucking up water. Thank you, Lowe's. The jury is still out concerning whether or not the wall-to-wall carpet can be saved. There's nothing to do but vacuum water right now even though Star and Teddy kind of miss their personal indoor wading pool. The senior Atkins household merely had a leak beside the chimney that allowed water to soak into an upstairs guest room ceiling.
We are fortunate, indeed, as many people have floods where no floods have ever gone before. This part of Georgia isn't used to floods. Many families have lost everything and some have lost their lives. The two pictures above show people kayaking through a neighborhood in Lilburn as well as one of the overturned school buses at Greg's old alma mater – the Parkview school cluster (compliments of the Gwinnett Daily Post).
Considering everything, the Atkins family can invoke our version of the saying: Thank God for BIG favors (but please don't let it rain any more for a week or two).
