Before and After Pictures of Grammy's Garden

By the UK's Nina Clough of "artquirk"

I wanted to post the dazzling original work of art that we commissioned from the talented "artquirk" (aka nina clough) of the courtyard between our house and my mother's addition.

We call it Grammy's Garden.

It has been a place of refuge, solace and beauty, that unfortunately needs a bit of rehabilitating after the hurricane (see the after picture in said garden of the loss of our crepe myrtle-- humble little trees that softly fall over, without damaging your fence even).

The high strung Vloskys: The night before the storm

Well it's almost 9:00 pm and we're as ready as we can be for Hurricane Gustav. We have moved probably 100 of my mother's pots from our common courtyard, and all of her vegetable containers and bird feeders from the back yard of her house. We have enough food and several interior rooms padded with sleeping bags and pillows just in case there is tornadic activity.

We are not a family that does well under stress. Already today I've had a significant fight with my son Daniel. He is on edge as am I, and our dog, Georgie, ate his wallet, at which point he went ballistic, and he scared poor Georgie to death. To try to assuage his anger, I bought him another wallet from Amazon.com (I'm sure this is very poor parenting). There was a moment when he and Brandi and Kellan were going to leave for Arkansas, but Rich convinced them to stay.

It's one of those times when your child is freaking out and overreacting about everything, and you must look at yourself and say, "he got that from me.... and it's not pretty."

The mirror that is your children is humbling.

Then there was my 87 year old mother, who wanted us to dig out her bird feeders from our shed, plus the stands (spear-like wroght-iron stands that are shoved into the ground that hold her multitudes of feeders), so that her birds could be fed up until the last minute. I told her,

"put the feed on the ground."

To which she replied, "but they won't know where it is?!"

I keep saying, "but they're birds!" "You are doing them a disservice keeping them here. They should be flying inland."

She is mostly worried about her "hummers" that she says are flitting around in our courtyard looking for their food.

You know, I always say, "people are more important than things." That is related to my current saying which is, "your family is more important than hummers."

While Rich and I went to the local bar to get take-out dinner, she left the house in her car, clipping two other vehicles on her way out (okay so I exaggerate, everyone knows that) to get more bird feed. We ordered all sorts of heart attack prone foods from George's (our local bar/eatery) to bring home to family members.

Why are we eating stuff that we ordinarily wouldn't ever touch?

I'll have to go on some sort of major diet and exercise program when this is all over and I'm glad to be alive. (I can hear my kids laughing as they read this. Of course Rich is thinking this isn't so funny).

We've already had a tornado warning (not watch) and we deliberated on whether or not to dive into our little sheltered rooms. Thankfully, it dissipated quickly.

Brandi looks so worn out (probably because her family is from N.O.and she is having flashbacks from Katrina, or maybe because she's just exhausted from being around us).

Brandi: hiding from Rich's camera (or when a 3,700 sq. ft. house feels too small)

James, on the other hand is non plussed and playing X-Box or games on his computer. It's funny how different people react differently.

James: oblivious

The t.v. is flickering out.... So, I'll sign off. We're supposed to be getting the first bands from the storm shortly, with the full-on effects by early morning.

Denese