new location, same neighborhood

If you have been following our blog, archives and updates can now be found at:

rockeyhome.blogspot.com

Thank you for your continued patronage.

We salute your shorts.

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