more to come

sinew & soul

 Wrapped another semester of my journey through seminary. Was inspired by Eugene Vodolazkin's novel, Laurus, to write a song. Recorded aforementioned song for a final project. Behold! A rough take of the entire composition (accompanied by occasional melodica and assorted noisemakers)...

an ordinary prayer

Lord of all pots and pans and things,

since I've no time to be a great saint

by doing lovely things,

or watching late with Thee,

or dreaming in the dawnlight,

or storming heaven's gates,

make me a saint by getting meals,

and washing up the plates.

Warm all the kitchen with Thy Love,

and light it with Thy peace;

forgive me all my worrying,

and make my grumbling cease.

Thou who didst love to give men food,

in room, or by the sea,

accept the service that I do, 

I do it unto Thee.

Amen.

-Brother Lawrence

just a spring clean for the may queen

Kids of the young and elder persuasion, lend me your eyeholes! The first time we ever stepped heel and toe into what would become our future home and live-in pet project, the staircase you see before you was interior feature numero uno to draw our attention. There was a LOT going on around this staircase; some of it good (built-in bookshelves of questionable craftsmanship), some of it none-so-much-as-good (pastel floral print wallpaper trim, anyone?). The above photo really does not do justice to how truly unflattering much of the scene was upon entry...

Or maybe it does. 

I don't know what you're into, you weirdo.

Here's MJ be-bopping up the stairs with tiny Nolan in her arms. Our ole pal Phil, who helped us purchase this blessed beast, leads the climb onward and upward to the second floor. Is he peering back at me to suggest that perhaps we might be slightly off our rockers to consider this new adventure? 

Time will tell... 

or perhaps she has told already. 

Once inside the stairwell, the walls looked an awful lot like this...

Despite, the jovial posture of my face muscles in the above photo, The stucco-textured walls were not our fave. No doubt that look upon my face is one of maniacal delight as I prepare to bring down my mighty paint-scraping utensil upon thy walls to make smooth(er) their surfaces and straight their paths.

After hanging a sharp right up the second set of stairs, one would find the second floor. Here's ole blurry Phil taking a glance back down into the stairwell. If you look close you can see the busted drywall/plaster situation on the wall. You might also notice that their was a doorway at the top of the stairs to close off the second floor from the ground floor on account of it having been previously used as a rental. Needless to say, that doorway is LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG GOOOOOOOOONE. Hey now, don't y'all go shedding salty tears over that door. It was rehung as our bedroom door. You can revisit that story by clickity clacking RIGHT HERE !!!

Peep that same view after heaping on a whole truckload o' love, sweat, and beers...

We scored that hanging lamp from Midland Antiques in downtown Indy and the new handrail for about five bones at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Whiteland. 

As for the lowercase portion of stair steps & co., we slopped a whole lot o' fresh paint on the bannister and risers, stripped and stained the handrail and treads to match our tasty refinished floor, and repaired and painted the built-ins along the wall. Here's a little before... 

and after...

The preceding was taken well before we recently finished the dining room floor picture in the background (more on that in a future episode).

Everything still turns to gold.

passages

In the weird summer of Twenty Thirteen, our little crew migrated a couple of miles north to the monstrous project that we've called home ever since. It's been over a year since sharing any home renovation updates in this corner of the interwebs, but I thought the completion of our latest project might warrant a return to this dusty ole blog. Therefore, behold the transformation of what was once known as "Caleb's Room" into our home studio affectionately known as The Mustard Room...

June 2013

January 2019

all is well

There have been a number of big life changes since my last batch of original song recordings titled Goodnight Nobody. This holiday season I wanted to share some of the songs that have been stewing in the interim. This six song set titled All Is Well documents earnest affection for close companions and dark nights of the soul. Two of the songs are inspired by lyrics given to me by an old friend while battling his own demons. 

This little project has been an opportunity to reacquaint myself with the joys and frustrations of home recording with limited resources in a dark corner of a cluttered room. It has also been an opportunity to shape and find the voice of these songs that have been slowly evolving over the years. The songs were all performed, recorded, and mixed in December 2017. I screen printed a limited edition of hand made sleeves for the CD version. 

You can listen and purchase by clicking below. 
Peace, friends.

heartbreaker

Look. There's nothing that I can write about the guitar-slinging rebel from Gainesville that someone much more eloquent and informed hasn't already tweeted in one hundred and forty characters. But, doggonit, Petty's songbook slowly became so woven into the fabric of my life that it was almost unnoticeable. Unnoticeable that is until I look through the stacks of mix tapes and compact discs that I've curated for Miranda over the duration of our almost two decades together. Petty's everywhere. Especially in those early mix tapes, his name is showing up over and over again on those J cards.

From the beginning of our relationship, Petty and the Heartbreakers were major players in soundtracking our courtship. During our first year of dating, Petty released Echo. You know, his divorce record. We would listen to it over and over and over again while driving around Muncie, IN, eating bean burritos, and dropping in to see friends working third shift on the edge of town. That summer two of sat under the stars and reveled in Petty's masterful live performance. During our first year of being husband and wife, we were driving from Indy to visit friends in Terre Haute. We were listening to Petty albums on the car stereo and getting so lost in singing along to our favorite songs that before we knew it, we were almost in Louisville, KY. We had been driving for over an hour in the wrong direction without a care in the world. They're just a handful of moments, but such great memories.

Ugh. There's been a lot of devastating news to endure lately. Petty's passing to the other side of life seems unexpected. Again, there's nothing new that I can necessarily add to the conversation. But, the songs he gave us... Wow. They will forever echo down the longest of highways and under the darkest of summer skies. Several years ago, Miranda and I watched the 4-hour doc on Petty and the Heartbreakers, Runnin' Down A Dream. It. Is. Stunning. You can watch it right now on Netflix and you should if you haven't. I know... 4 hours... Worth it. In the film there's a clip of Petty and the boys performing a song that was ridiculously kept off of the album Long After Dark at producer Jimmy Iovine's request. In hindsight, the band believed that the track "Keeping Me Alive" should have been on the record. 

"Sometimes we ride around. She plays the radio up loud. If I was sad, well I'm happy now." 

In a world of uncertainty, Petty reminds us of what matters: Love and music.

Thank you, Mister Petty.

the big move

We have pretty rad neighbors. Last weekend, they gifted us their shed. With a little engineering and muscle and teamwork, we successfully transplanted it from their yard to our yard.

Humans working together: Sometimes it works out pretty great.

ten years

Families are made of flesh and blood and personalities and shared experiences and history and every emotion on the spectrum. We are born into families. We are adopted into families. Seventeen years ago, after pledging vows and having a party with a meticulously curated soundtrack, MJ and I adopted each other's family as our own. We also made the decision to be partners in building a family that would be uniquely ours. We had no idea what kind of journey we were in for. Seventeen years later, we are every day trying and stumbling and occasionally succeeding in our roles as mother and father to our young daughter and son. Every family story is different. Every family story has wrinkles. Just like every family, our story has scars that forever remind us of how we got here, of how we became us.

In June of 2007, after two previous miscarriages, we started the painful process of saying goodbye to three babies who MJ formed and carried in her body for nineteen weeks. Our dreams of being parents had once again been dashed to pieces as we spent a full week in the hospital holding these little ones in our arms before too quickly having to let go. We named our babies. We let our imaginations run wild wondering what they would have been like. We mourned their loss and invited others to join us as we grieved. We hid from the world for a season. We wondered if we would be hopelessly childless for the rest of our lives. Whatever the future held, these three babies had made their mark on us forever. 

From very early on we have shared with our kids the story of the brother and sisters that came before them. We have a box of memories and books that we look through as a family, and we celebrate their memory every year on June 26th and 29th. This June, after ten years, we finally scattered the ashes of our little ones. It was a difficult decision that we could never quite make until this year. Together, our family decided that we would baptize the town where we have decided to put down roots. On June 26th, 2017, our little family of four had a quiet picnic on the lawn outside the community center. We released balloons carrying personal notes from our family that were marked with our triplets' tiny footprints. We circled up in the creek that runs through our town and gave thanks for their lives before finally letting go of their remains.

Ten years...

We carry the memory of Nathaniel David, Lily Constance, and Hannah Jane in our hearts and minds and souls forever.

zoo cuz

foyer eyes only

Things have stalled a bit while we are taking our time getting around to finishing the baseboards and quarter round in the family room (see previous post). Between drama clubs and consignment sales, there's been a whole lot of other on our plates as of late. However, I thought it might be apropos to this now-primarily-home-renovation interweb journal to share a few snapshots of what we affectionately refer to as our foyer.

The preceding has been a photographic depiction of myself armed with little more than a heat-blasting gun and a handful of Superego eps in my earbuds whilst obliterating the textured purple paint from our foyer walls, circa Fall 2016. What follows is a much more recent view of the same location...

After making some repairs to the mixture of plaster and gypsum walls, we threw some fresh paint all over everything. Notice that the floorboards have been sanded free of the old finish. They lie in wait of fresh espresso and polyurethane (on deck for spring break '17). I'd been collecting those clipboards on the wall for the last couple of years hoping to find such a place in our home to make use of them. At long last, all of my hopes and dreams have come to fruition.

Finally, I'll throw in a couple of glimpses of another corner of the foyer. While the after shot is very much a work-in-progress, it gives an idea of how drastically our foyer's tone differs from when we first took a tour of our future home in May 2013...

Stray observations: door with top hinge barely hanging on; disgusting carpet; weird window shutter; hospital waiting room wallpaper; domestic ghosts (as seen in lower lefthand corner); nothing desirable whatsoever...

...until Fall 2016...

Mmmmm... so crispy!

Until next time, party people.

family rooms made fabulous

It's been quite some time since our last update on the ole Rockey home renovation. That most def doesn't mean that we've not been busy (notice the double negatives? we've been busy). There's been quite a bit of work on the first floor since finishing our upstairs bathroom a year ago. Hopefully, there will be more on that soon. Until then, enjoy some before/after shots of our nearly completed family room.

angle one...

same angle in May 2013...

aaaaaaand angle two...

same angle in May 2013...

There. That should hold you over for awhile!

Now get outside and enjoy yourself.

freedom has a new name

I wrote this song over a decade ago as an indictment against my own apathy. I hope that it carries a word for you during these disorienting days.

Love.

Empathy.

Peace.