The Garden : FREE MULCH in Huntsville & Bloom of the Week

Looking for a way to spruce up your garden beds? 

Our neighbors told us about the free mulch from the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. We don't have access to a truck so we grabbed an old plastic trashcan and unpacked a few more of our Rubbermaid tubs, loaded them in Silver Flash, grabbed our shovels and headed down the road.

There were huge piles of wood chip mulch - FREE mulch (well, donations are appreciated)!! It took us about twenty minutes to shovel as much as we could in the tubs and trashcan so it wasn't that bad. We barely made a dent in the mulch piles. Between our tubs, there was just enough mulch to fill the front yard and it looks lovely!

So, thank you, Botanical Gardens of Huntsville. You deserve the Award for Being Awesome this month. 

We're enjoying the blooms from the front of our vegetable gardens. I picked a few marigolds and placed them in a tiny teacup last week to add to our dining room centerpiece.

But this week's bloom feature goes out to the Black-eyed Susans which have so lovingly overtaken the end of our walking path through the garden. We're trying to figure out how to take care of that problem. 

Increasing Curb Appeal : Garage Door Revamped

I'm going to let you in on a little secret... 

We haven't shown many photos of the exterior of our house. In fact, the exterior was our least favorite part of the house when we saw it. The front boasts a slightly modern / Brady Bunch kind of style which is cool, but very different. 

If we had money growing from our elbows, we would paint the orangey-pink brick and tan accents, knock down the whole entry way / give it a mod-cottage twist and add a completely new garage door. 

Unfortunately, we haven't mastered the money trick yet, so we settled on adding a Black Decorative Hardware Kit to the face of our garage. Once again, my awesome mom came to the rescue and picked up a kit for us before she came to visit last time. *Thanks mom!

It was super easy! All you need is a kit, a drill and some muscles. Great neighbors help too!

{thanks Elizabeth, Alyssa and Ava for helping me measure and handing me the screwdriver when needed. Alyssa and Ava also performed a marvelous ballet recital after we finished. The freshly-decorated garage acted as their backdrop.}

Tip: There are several options for the layout of your hardware. The back of the box has great design ideas! I taped all of the hardware in different designs so that I could figure out which way looked best and decided on this one...

We still have a few additions to make on the front of the house, as our budget allows, but the hardware kit added a great amount of character!

Do you think the hardware kit made a big difference?

What was one of the first things you changed on the exterior of your home? 

The Todd Nest : Composing the Built-Ins with Color & Themes

We were so excited to walk up the stairs in our new split-foyer home and see these lovely built-ins just waiting for a special touch of lovely.

Here is a "way before" photo from the first time we looked at the house with our realtor. Beside it, you will see a simple "before" photo of what the built-ins looked like as I unloaded our boxes and tried to gain a little inspiration.

As I was procrastinating from packing at the apartment one day doing research, I saw this post from Young House Love and decided we MUST paint the backs of these built-ins. 

I gathered a few vintage inspiration pieces and decided on the color "Cooled Blue" from Sherwin Williams. 

I turned on some awesome jams and began painting away. 

Then they sat there for a few days. Some shelves were empty, some lined with bottles. It was a mess. In between dealing with plumbing issues, utility transfers and all of the other luxuries of home ownership, I kind of gave up on decorating for a few days.

{notice there is no logo on this photo. that's how embarrassing it is.}

Fortunately, my mom would be making a special trip up to Huntsville for a few days to help rescue us from the overwhelming stress of unpacking, organizing and cleaning up the messes we had already made.

First priority? 

Unpack the boxes in the living room, store the painting supplies and decorate the built-ins.

One of mine and JD's favorite things about moving has been to unpack boxes and find things we had completely forgotten about, such as all of our vintage cameras we bought for crazy cheap at a yard sale.

 

Mom and I pulled those babies out, cleaned 'em up and used them as one of our themes. 

My awesome mom was the megamind behind the themes and most of the setting up process. Could I have done this all myself? Probably. But would it have looked nearly as amazing? Absolutely not. At least, not in the state of mind I was in. 

Not sure if this happens to anyone else, but I get stuck in the same decorating process as I was when we lived at the apartment. I want everything to be placed the same way and have the same themes. It's so annoying. When you move, you have all of the freedom in the world to redecorate how you'd like but I was really stuck. 

The world needs great momma's and I'm so thankful for mine!!

She helped to get my out of that rut pretty quickly when she swiped my bottles off the decorating list (except two wonderful milk vases).

But back to the built-ins....

Here, we used a vintage Westclox, a chalkboard I repurposed, the TODD letters Chase and Jackie gave us as a wedding gift, an old Polaroid, a Mason jar with an old camera lamp sitting in it, and (to the far left) a mixed media piece I made. 

We carried the theme of the vintage clock, Mason jar / camera lamp, and mixed media piece to the third shelf for cohesiveness. 

The top shelf has a small, vintage chandelier piece and my two favorite birds plates on display. 

The bottom shelf displays a couple of pieces from our wedding - the chalkboard and the rice jar from our rice ceremony. Of course, we carried the theme of the nest and birds throughout, as this is, after all, the Todd Nest. :) Both of those pieces are stacked on vintage greeting card boxes and Reader's Digest books. 

[photo by Kike Morales] 

[photo by Kike Morales]

If you haven't stopped by our wedding page, check it out here.

We are still getting our annual Jitney CDs ready so be on the lookout for a giveaway on that in the very near future. 

In the meantime, head on over to Ruthy's giveaway at Discovery Street. You can enter to win a $60 gift card to one of our favorite stores, Target!! If you follow Jitney's Journeys on Bloglovin' or any of the other amazing bloggers sponsoring the giveaway, you will automatically get 3 entries for each blog you follow. Oh yeah!!!

So do the happy dance and go enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Garden : Assembling the Tomato-Trailing Trellis for the Raised Garden Bed

How can you transform an overgrown raised garden bed into a thriving vegetable garden? 

We're so glad you asked...

The raised garden bed looked something like this when we first looked at the house:

Add on three months of glorious Alabama sunshine and rain, and well, this garden bed needed some tough TLC. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it's achievable.

My mom uprooted every single inch of greenery in this bed and cleaned it all out. The huge elephant ears that you saw from our herb garden were transplanted from this garden first. It was unbelievably hard work. There are no words to express our gratitude towards my mom and dad for all of their help.

Next we covered the bed in fresh Miracle Grow, mixing in the old dirt. After a quick shop to Lowe's and the local garden center, we planted lettuce, tomatos, squash, eggplant, jalapeño peppers, bell peppers, basil, cilantro, parsley, zinnias and nasturtium (which is an edible flower and quite delicious!).

JD soaked them in some serious amounts of water...

And then it was time to assemble the trellis:

There is something so endearing about seeing the two favorite men in your life work together.

Isn't he such a stud?

They even let me help!

They laid a board down the center for ease of picking and watering the plants while walking through the center instead of walking in our garden bed.

In about two weeks, everything flourished!!

Our greatest gardening endeavor is for our raised bed garden to look like this masterpiece in a few months (or at least next summer):

This is a truly thriving vegetable garden, cared for from seed to veggie by my dad. 

He and I spent Father's Day morning sitting in his garden, drinking hot tea and listening to birds. I'm not sure if it was his best Father's Day ever but it was certainly my favorite!

The Garden : Get Your Herb On

Bring on the cucumber water! We have enough rosemary and mint to last us till next summer.

This area of our new yard is overflowing with herbs - specifically mint, oregano and rosemary. It is absolutely unbelievable! Obviously, the herbs were all waiting for us when we moved into our new home. It's much more abundant than our tiny balcony herb garden from our apartment last year....

Mint engulfed much of the area so we cut a large amount out and placed a few sprigs in mason jars at the kitchen sink. 

The elephant ears were the first plants we transferred as we were moving in. My mom cleared out the raised garden bed (which held elephant ears and a few other plants) while dad, JD and one of our old neighbors moved all of our boxes into the rooms (and I directed). Instead of tossing out the elephant ears, we separated the roots and moved most of them into the right-hand corner of the herb garden (mom and dad took the rest home with them). Aren't they fun!? 

What is your favorite herb to cook with or to grow?

The Garden : Generations of Green Thumbs

Welcome to the home of robins, bluebirds, blue jays, squirrels, chipmunks, fireflies, and whimsical plants.

AKA: Our Garden

I wish we could say that we built it from the ground-up, but we didn't. With the simple sign of a pen, we obtained this absolutely amazing garden along with our new home. 

It's magical.

Forget a green thumb. These previous homeowners must have had green streaming from each of their fingertips. A number of people are terrified that we're going to ruin have a little trouble keeping the garden up since I haven't always had the best luck with something as small as a potted plant... but I really think we'll get the hang of it eventually.

When all else fails, we must remember that all things will [hopefully] grow back.

At least, that's what my mom tells me.

I think that's one reason I love this garden so much. It reminds me of both my mother's and my grandmother's gardens. They are - hands-down - the best gardeners I know. Their gardens are both extraordinarily lovely, charming and peaceful. I loved walking through Gingin's gardens with her when we lived at the Bungalow; and no time is sweeter with my mom than when we play in the dirt and have conversations surrounded by rich blooms. 

"I come to the garden alone

While the dew is still on the roses

And the voice I hear falls on my ear

The Son of God discloses"

That's one of our favorite hymns. I have no doubt that we all sing it when watering our gardens. 

{Side Note: I butchered Gingin's hydrangea bushes (my favorite flowers) at the Bungalow when I attempted to "prune" them for the first time. That was my first terrible gardening experience. But, just like mom and Gingin said, they have grown back. There is hope for me yet!}

mom and her garden

mom and dad's raised garden beds

deeply thankful for these green-thumbed lovebirds

Dad is an incredible gardener also, especially with vegetables. He is a master scientist. It comes in handy when growing all of your plants from little seedlings!

JD and I have confidence that we will be able to keep a beautiful garden because we have our families as a resource.

JD and dad spent a lot of time tackling this task before we moved into our new home.

Next week, we'll share our raised garden bed project with you.

In the meantime, here are a few of the perennials in bloom this week:

Balloon Flower

 Coneflower 

The Anniversary : Rose Petals, Flooding & a New Home

We have finally moved into our new house! 

We were planning on staying our first night the weekend after we signed the contract. Unfortunately, I began washing our sheets for the bed and quickly found out that the washing machine drain was clogged.

Yeah.

First day of move-in: The laundry room floods. 

Good thing it has tile flooring down there.

So we called Roto Rooter out to unclog the drain and decided to wait it out a few more days until our anniversary.

Ends up, the first night was more than perfect. Way more perfect than it would have been if we stayed there the originally-planned evening. JD had a few wonderful surprises waiting for me on our screened-in back porch (candles, bouquet of flowers and scattered rose petals surrounding our tiny chairs). 

My sweet husband is so brilliantly romantic that he scattered rose petals on the bedroom floor - on top of bubble wrap so that our floors wouldn't get stained. 

That's love, right there, y'all.

We prepared the popcorn, got cozy in our completely unorganized living room and watched "Up", the first movie we watched together on our first date four years ago. I cry more and more during that movie as each year passes. Only now I don't need 3D glasses to hide my tears. ;)

In the past week, adventures in home ownership have thrown us for a few surprises and left us with several moments of frustration. 

{we'll tell you more about that later}

Yet, we are truly having the time of our lives. After our first shock of an old-house issue (laundry room flood), we laugh about all of the other huge and tiny problems that arise.

It's our house now.

Our home.

No maintenance guys to call or leases to let run out. It's our responsibility - and challenge - to take care of.

And it's awesome. 

For now, we will share at least one small victory from our first week: a freshly mowed lawn. 

Whoop whoop!

Another Blissful Year Flies By : Celebrating Our Three-Year Anniversary

Today marks our third year of sweet marriage.

And what an amazing year it has been!

Every year that passes, we look back and realize that God continues to carry us through an even crazier journey than the year before. 

Here's a look into the adventures of Jitney's Journeys Year III:

Spent our first major trip away from each other

Regardless of how long you have been married or the circumstances, 24 days is a really long time to be apart from one another. We wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Then we had to do it again

a few months later

...

In totality, survived being apart from another for at least six weeks

Took photos at the film location of

Jurassic Park

in Hawaii

Experienced the first

blowhole

either of us have ever seen or heard

Competed together in our first 

Warrior Dash 

ever

Ran through the course alongside amazing friends and family

Took a road trip from Germany through the Swiss Alps into Italy

First trip to

Italy

Attained new

leather working skills

, which is super fitting because the traditional third year anniversary gift is leather

Served beside one another on our first international mission trip

And finally...

Looked for a new house

and found one!

This house is our first true home, or nest, if you will.

We can finally decorate, paint, tear down and build up, as we please. 

We promise to show you photos soon but everything is still in turbo-move mode.

The plan was to stay the first night in our new home last Thursday but we had some plumbing issues plus immaculate windows without curtains, so we kept putting off the big first night's stay.

Then we decided that the best anniversary gift we could give one another is to spend our first night at our new home on our anniversary. 

Here's to a great night's rest in our new nest! 

Cucumber Water

First off, a HUGE thank-you goes out to the women who hosted our Guest Blogger series for May.

Now that your worlds have been rocked by those amazing ladies, you probably need a nice refreshing drink to hydrate yourself. 

Thus, we will continue rocking your world with this delicious cucumber water recipe.

Our dentist in Georgia serves this to all of his clients. We immediately asked for the recipe when we took the first sip.

You will need:

mint, rosemary, cucumbers, water

Venture out to your herb garden (or farmer's market or local produce section) and clip a few sprigs of mint and rosemary.

Rinse.

Grab an old glass milk bottle (or serving glass of your choice) and gently arrange the herbs into the jar. 

Slice your cucumbers and toss them in the bottle too. 

Add cold water.

Allow to infuse for a few hours in the fridge.

Pour.

Sip.

Be refreshed.

This display is also gorgeous in a large beverage dispenser 

Photo from hosting Emily's bridesmaid luncheon. 

What is your favorite water infusion?

Guest Blogger : Meg @ Henning Love

Hello Jitney's Journeys followers! My name is Meg and my blog is henning love, where I love to write about life with my husband, our two dogs and share my many many baking adventures with everyone. 

When I describe myself, my identity is not as a wife first but as a daughter of a King. God is my first priority in life and I would be nothing without Him. When Whitney asked if I would guest post, I wanted to share something with you all that God has placed on my heart lately as a priority and that is prayer and the purpose of prayer.

Back in February, my husband brought home a 30/30 challenge prayer book, 30 minutes a day for 30 days.

My relationship with God dramatically changed during this challenge. In this book, I was taught so many different ways to pray, pray using Scripture, pray for other nations, pray for our government leaders are just a few examples. As a result of this challenge, I have found that I continually stay in prayer throughout the day. When I am feeling sad I talk to God and when I am feeling happy I express it to God. I realized through this prayer challenge that I don't have to always be eloquent with my prayers, but being mindful that I am talking to the Creator of the Universe and of my life. 

Undergoing a prayer challenge opened up to my eyes of how much more dependent upon God I need to be for everything and I mean everything. My husband and I were needing more friends in our life so I prayed for that and God has answered that. I am currently unemployed and while He hasn't answered that prayer request yet, I asked God for help and He brought to my mind two past situations and He told me didn't I take care of you through those situations, I will take care of you through this unemployment. 

Our God is a great and mighty God and I am humbled today to be able to share with you more about prayer, the importance of it, bringing all and every requests before God and remaining constantly in pray with Him throughout the day. He wants every part of us, He wants to know when we are in that low valley or when we are standing high on that peak. 

*If any of you are interested in taking this challenge, the university where my husband is a coach at, publishes this books and I have a few copies which I am more than willing to mail to any blogger who wants.