One Last Day

So I just got back from the doctor. They're going to amputate my toe tomorrow morning. I'm glad. It is hurting really badly now, even with the medication. He said once it's off the pain will be a lot less and I should be able to walk within a few days. Granted, I won't have ten toes, but whatever... I haven't been doing much the last few days, mainly because I can't, but I've really been enjoying getting to spend time with my family, and lots of friends have been dropping by, and it's been nice to have time to catch up with them. I'll have to get back to work on Monday, so this week of recuperation has had its blessings. Thanks again everyone for your prayers and kind notes during this time. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!

Happy Toe-day!?!

Well, I went to the doctor today to see about my foot. The bandage has been on since my operation Saturday, and I couldn't believe what it looked like when they took it off. I won't describe it, because it's gross, but maybe I can set up a place to look at pictures, if you're really curious and not squeamish. Anyway, the doctor said it didn't look like it would make it, but that we ought to give it another two days to see if it would improve. It's going to have to improve pretty drastically, though. Otherwise, when I go in on Thursday they'll schedule the amputation for Friday.

I've dealt with the thought of losing this toe now for a few days, and I'm ok with it. I'm not excited about it, but I have seen with my own eyes people living lives in uncompromised misery and squalor, and missing a toe would be heaven to some of the Indian orphans I spent time with last year. So don't feel bad for me, because I don't. That being said, I do feel bad for my wife who's having to take care of an eight-week old little baby girl, and now a 26-year old doped up on pain medicine who thinks he can do far more things than he's truly able to do. I don't know if I've ever realized how great she is, but I'm realizing it now and praying for her rest, patience and sanity.

My pain medication has been making me kind of nauseous, but I tend to feel a lot better before noon. Each morning Alison has brought Ella into the guest room, where I'm sleeping right now, and she stays with me for a few hours, while Alison gets a little more rest and gets ready for the day. Ella is still learning to smile, and she's most likely to try it out in those morning hours, and that's really fun. I am so in love with my little girl. Here's a picture I took with my phone this morning, to show you why, toe or not, no one should feel sorry for me.



Thank you also, to the many of who you have sent me e-mails of encouragement and letting me know you were praying for me. That really means a lot. And I really feel that people are praying for us. The doctor said we were waiting "on a miracle" with saving my toe, and so I'm not counting on keeping it, but I'm not giving up either. Whatever the Lord wills, I know He has a reason, and I know He answers prayer.

I would like to ask for prayer for one other thing, as well. Because of my inability to get up and move around I have had to cancel over a week of studio work, and a few shows, one in Florida with Andrew Peterson. The Lord provides, and I have seen Him do that more than most people, I am pretty sure. With the cancelling of those Caedmon's tour dates so we could have Ella, and all the little things with a new baby, and now all the medicines and doctor deductibles on this toe, though, I'm curious how He IS going to provide right now. I think the fact that I have to sit around and not do anything doesn't help when I get to worrying. I know everything will work out, but I would just like to know that our finances are being lifted up as much as my little, purple friend. So thank you for that, as well.

In other news, Matthew Perryman Jones and Cason have been working today on a great new tune for Matthew's new record, that we'll hopefully be working on sometime soon. The rumbling from the basement sounds pretty great, so I'm excited for that to get going. Hopefully, I'll get some good writing done whie I've got to sit here, and if any of my new stuff sounds like "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" just know that I'm on some good painkillers! Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers, and I'll keep you updated. Thanks.

who needs ten toes?

Hey everybody,
I had an accident while mowing the lawn today, and I cut two of my toes very badly. Three of them are broken. I just got home from the emergency room. They operated on them, and I still have them all, but one of them, my middle toe, was just short of being sliced off. I go back on Tuesday to see if it "took". So I don't know if I'll get to keep it. My big toe, the other one that got badly cut, is better and will probably heal ok. I'll be on crutches for a while, though. Please keep me and my family in your prayers. Thanks.

sleeping in

Well, first of all. I cheated. This morning, I did not get up to mow the lawn at 8, No! I didn't even get up at 9:30 to work at 10. No! I opened the door for Ben and Andy, went back to bed, got up at 10:30, wished it was still 6 am, and wondered downstairs sleepy-eyed hoping they weren't just looking at the stairwell waiting for me. They weren't. Thank God.

I think I played the last electric guitar on the record last night, though. It's been a very fun record to play. I got to do a lot of John Leventhal style stuff. Low baritones and clean strats. So much fun. I actually have rediscovered the Strat on this record. I've used it on almost every song, and gotten sounds out of it I didn't realize were in there. I'm excited for people to hear it. It's fun to listen to something you just did and go "man, that sounds like the dude actually knew what he was doing!"

I never know what I'm doing. I play guitar like Jackson Pollock painted. And his paintings annoy me. I never took lessons or anything, so everything I know how to do, technique-wise, I had to learn by playing, hearing a part that needed to be there, and figuring out a way to do it. I guess that's how anybody learns anything, though. At first you just have a couple tricks, you learn a few new ones, and after a while your tricks start blending together until you really actually have a sort of mastery of it. Or at least a good framework.

In other news, I wrote yesterday about Ella smiling. Well, we sure tried the rest of the day to get her to do it again, and no dice. We know she can, though, so that's good news! When she's sleeping she makes all kinds of different faces, or as Cason calls it, she's "scrolling through facial expressions." It's pretty cute, and you can see her muscles learning how to move in all those different directions. Pretty amazing.

Also, if you use ProTools ever, make sure to leave on Auto-Save every 5 minutes. It's under the Prefs menu. Somehow ours got turned off, and we just lost an hour of drum editing and Andy P's lead vocal he just spent an hour on. So he has to do it again. Which gives me time to write my post about church.

it's late, but you need to see this

it's 2 am, and we just finished up on AP's record for the night. I have to get up at 8 to mow the lawn. Ouch. But you need to see this, it is important and life-changing. Click on the video. You will thank me.