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.

will play 4 beer

Thanks to Restore Old Town Greenwood for the opportunity to jangle our guitars out back behind Planetary Brewing Company. An extra special thanks for the growlers of java stout that we took home! Cheers!

thank you

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Kyrie Eleison 10 last night! We had so much fun sharing our songs with everyone. Special thanks to CGC and everyone who stayed late to help pack up our gear and put everything back in its place.

ten long years later

Ten long years ago, I unleashed into the world a collection of songs titled Kyrie Eleison. Some of these songs had been percolating for a bit, but most of them were written in the wake of a season that ran deep with grief and turmoil. 

In February of Twenty Ought Six, after years of attempting pregnancy with zero success, MJ had been heralded the message that she was at long last carrying new life deep within her belly. On the very same day, I was delivered the gut-wrenching request to leave the church where I had served as youth ministry equipper for three and a half years. No longer would we serve in the church family where we made friends and loved kids whose lives MJ and I poured ourselves into. Grieving this impending divorce and wrought with anger, I agreed to finish out the month in my position at the church during which time we had our one ray of sunshine snuffed out. After only two weeks, we suffered our first miscarriage. It was an emotional fustercluck that left us reeling for months if not years. 

The months that followed would find MJ and I withdrawing from friends and the church at large. We retreated into the trees and coasted along the clouds. He hopped along islands where no one knew us but ourselves. We gave up the solitude of our home to house loved ones. We spent time with friends and family who were suffering pain of varying kinds. This season also found me articulating in sound and lyric the frustration, anger, and sadness that plagued me from the moment I'd received each punch in the gut. These were emotions immediately felt and translated to song. Together with a handful of songs that had been simmering for months already, they work as a narrative that serve to remind me of the hope that wins out despite the many many shortcomings of humanity.

November Twenty Sixteen marks ten years since I performed live with some friends in celebration of this record's release. Two of those friends, my cousin Jason and my friend Ryan along with Jason's son Tyler and Ryan's brother Jordan will be joining me at the very church that set me free for a performance of Kyrie Eleison in its entirety. I'm thrilled to be revisiting these songs and telling the stories of their inception. It's pretty incredible to be looking at them from ten years on the other side. We've done a whole lot of healing and forgiving and growing as human beings since then. We've still got a long way to go. So why harbor animosity? We have the choice to move forward with one another: Strangers becoming friends, friends changing the world.

Joel Rockey & Friends Perform Kyrie Eleison

Friday, November 11 at 7pm

Center Grove Church

Greenwood, IN

the bathroom renovation, part two: the laundry side

When we purchased Rockey Manor way back in the summer of Twenty Thirteen, we had a dream of transforming this room that had been divided into a less-than-darling kitchenette/bathroom. Our dream was a large family bathroom that would also serve as laundry central.

That pantry(?) to the right was gutted to make room for our future washer and dryer...

Things get worse before they get better (no doy).

With all of the electric wiring and plumbing to be installed and rerouted behind those walls, we ended up tearing out most of the plaster on the walls to make things easyish on ourselves.

Check those new hot and cold supplies for our future wash basin...

After all electric and water lines were in place, we put up fresh gypsum on all the walls.

Nice gams, flyboy.

Here's a shot of the finishing stages of the drywall...

and another...

aaaaaand one more featuring an upside down tub...

Whew. Exhausting. 

After we got the walls all dolled up in fresh paint, we cleaned up some baseboards salvaged from our lovely neighbors' home...

We also hung the mirror that IKEA no longer sells, but that we purchased off the wall of mirrors leading to their second floor bathrooms... 

Here's the washer and dryer nestled in all snug into their little nook...

Boy, this post is getting ridiculously tedious. I'm starting to think that a simple "before" and "after" pic would have been more than sufficient. But, alas, I have already uploaded all of these images of minute details and must march forward.

How about pics of a couple secondhand pieces we picked up...

Like this metal cart we found at Midland Antiques in charming downtown Indianapolis...

And this, one of two porcelain chain lamps we found for just a few bones on the eBay...

And finally, let's step back to take a look at that aforementioned "after" shot...

Wow!

Good grief, it took us longer than necessary to get there. But don't you feel like you really got to know our new bathroom on an uncomfortably intimate level? Because if we haven't accomplished that, then what the hell good is a blog anyhow? 

Am I right?

I'm right.

You're welcome.

Well, it took so long getting around to posting about the bathroom that it's probably about time we peeked in on the dining room.

[ooh, cliffhanger]

SaveSave

the bathroom renovation, part one: the shower side

Greeting, family, friends, and internet trolls! I'm about to fill your eyeholes with images of the recently (mostly) completed bathroom renovation at Rockey Manor. It's going to be intense. If you need some time to prepare yourself, THIS SHOULD GET YOU IN THE MOOD.

And away we go.

For almost three years, our little family has learned to perform all bathroom related tasks in a less-than-stress-free bathroom that has been in varying stages of decay. This decay includes but is certainly not limited to the rotting wood floor that the toilet sits precariously upon. At the time of this writing, the toilet patron casualty total is still zero.

Seeing as how aesthetics are currently a non-concern in the garbage bathroom, Baby Jane and I began writing messages on the wall facing the toilet (see above pic). We try to find little ways to make the best of a kinda crappy situation (pun absolutely intended).

Now let's take a look at the major overhaul that's been going on upstairs while we've been sharing a bathroom with CAVE CRICKETS on the first floor.

When we first took a gander at our soon-to-be home/project, the first space we toured on the second floor was this kitchenette. This once-single room had had its doorway opened up to the ceiling and been divided in to a kitchenette and very narrow "bathing closet". We assume that the door used for the bathroom portion of this space once served as the door to the hallway. We would, in due time, return that door to it's rightful place. Stay tuned for more on that door situation.

Upon stepping inside the aforementioned "bathing closet" we would find this faux "crumbling" plastered chimney next to a compressed board basin cabinet and winterized commode. 

On the other end of this narrow space was the diminutive bathing tub you see pictured below...

Yikes. This tub seriously wouldn't accommodate anyone larger than an eleven-year-old child.

Once we acquired ownership of our home, the first order of business was to beat the everliving hell out of it. We ripped out any walls that weren't part of the original structure including the one you no longer see here...

The bathing closet and former kitchenette have at long last been joined in holy matrimony and become one!

Hmmm...

Oh boy.

We pulled up all of the flooring that had been laid over the original wood floorboards and discarded all the old fixtures...

Hey. See that corner on the right where the tiny baby shower used to be? You could totally look right through the floor into the kitchen...

Hi there, sexy.

While we patiently demolished our future bathing room, our future bathing tub (donated by our more-than-generous neighbors) sat on our formerly enclosed front porch. It was a good place to sit and ponder on what the hell we were thinking when we signed up for this insane adventure.

We decided that the floor on the "bathing end" of the bathroom would be tiled. We pulled up the floorboards and prepared to install new sub-flooring by enlisting our old pal Mr Hummel to help us add some much needed structural support...

Look at him go.

It's like that level is an extension of his very being. Also notice that the plaster has been removed from the chimney. So chic, you freak.

After constructing a wall, floor, and bench for our walk-in shower, we talked Mr Hummel into returning to help us pour the concrete.

With the concrete poured and cement board screwed down to the floors and shower walls, we were ready to get tiling. Of course we knew that our efforts would need the guidance and steady hand of this master tile setter...

He's got those tiny, nimble fingers for those hard-to-reach corners.

Look, gang! 

We've got the makings of what appears to be a shower...

Moving on to the floor where our tub and toilet will sit...

MJ cutting tile like a boss...

Once all the tile was set, i shook off the dust from my once-fine-tuned grouting skills... 

Keep trying, fun boy.

One last pic before the final reveal...

Sub-floor space presented various opportunities for some creative plumbing solutions. 

Needless to say, we rose to the occasion. So far nothing seems to be crawling back up through the drain attached to that PVC monstrosity.

And now for the final reveal.

Before...

...aaaaaaaaaaaand...

After...

Before...

...aaaaaaaaaaaand...

After...

Before...

Ugh!

...aaaaaaaaaaaand...

After...

Who wouldn't wanna poop in that corner?

Stay tuned for 

Part Two: The Laundry Side

(and for more on the aforementioned "door situation")