God's Sense Of Humor

I absolutely love God's sense of humor!  And if you don't think He has a sense of humor, then you need to think again.  Or, I could have said it this way, "if you don't think that God has a sense of humor, then you have another think coming your way."

Editor's note: please use the correct word think when repeating this cliché, as it is not a 'thing coming your way', it is a think coming your way. :-)   

God is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Name above all names, and the great I AM.  I love the I AM poster.  But it is lacking one title that could have been slipped in at the very end; I AM the ultimate comedian.  We are made in His image, and this includes His humor, laughing, and sarcasm.

Have you ever listened to Mark Lowry?  If not, rent his DVD.  He is the funniest Christian comedian that God ever made.  He is pee in your pants funny.  Your sides will ache from laughter.

Need more proof?

Other than Justin Timberlake; have you ever seen a white man able to dance like Michael Jackson?

Other than M&M; have you ever heard a white man that can rap as great as Usher?

Other than Bruce Willis; have you ever seen a bald white man that looks as good bald as any black guy does?

Other than Emeril Lagasse; have you ever seen a white man that can cook southern food to the pinnacle of perfection?

Those are plenty of humorous examples with how God decided to 'mess up the white man'. 

But for me, I need look no further than my own bathroom for proof of His humor. 

Over the past few years, I have been in many dozens of customer bathrooms providing quotes for remodeling.  The thing that consistently amazes me is the boat load of items on the woman's side, compared to the sparse items on the man's side.

By comparison to my own bathroom, I have seen other ladies side bathrooms with 10, 12, 15x the amount of supplies and accessories that my wife uses!  It is astonishing.  I have seen bathrooms so full of items that I thought they robbed the Dillard's and Ulta counters the night before.  Dozens and dozens of bottles of perfume, hair things by the dozens, and even more 100's of things for the face. 

How else could this not be God?  I can hear Him now, "Ok Adam, you guys will get by with some soap and dull sheers for the rest of eternity.  But Eve, ha ha, sorry honey, but your lady descendants are going to need 3 piece sets of luggage to transport toiletries in a few 1,000's of years."

For a man's shower, what is needed is a bar of soap, shaving cream, and a razor.

But, for a woman's shower, what is needed is 4 shelves of gear, each with it's own purpose, with a total of 18 items at their disposal for that day's shower needs.

For a man to finish getting ready of a morning, what is needed is a Q-tip for each ear, deodorant, and cologne.

But, for a woman to finish getting ready of a morning, what is needed is 4 fully stocked drawers of necessities, totaling well into multiple 100's of selections, that overflow into 2 fully stocked back up baskets that are hauled out for use each morning too.

It takes a man 8-10 minutes from start to finish.

My wife moves at light speed, and still takes 40 minutes from start to finish.  When she is really getting dolled up though, it is over an hour.  She is incredibly gorgeous to me without 'help', but wow, after 40-60 minutes of prep time, an amazing transformation has just occurred!

I still crack up about it though.  If God had wanted to, he could have made man the one that needed 40-60 minutes to be transformed.  But, THANK GOD He didn't!  I'd not have the patience for it!

Thank you ladies for bearing this burden.  You can complain privately to God when you see Him one day and tell Him that you don't think His joke was very funny . . . :-)

And don't even get me started about female menopause vs. male andropause.  We'll save that for another blogging chapter sometime down the road; as well as the extra night time trips to the bathroom and wild hairs. Yeah, that should make for some pretty comical stuff.

Until then, I might see if a 3rd Q-tip is needed in the morning . . .

Comfort Food

My favorite comfort foods:

Nini's fried chicken, mashed potato's (sans gravy), corn.

Nini's chicken fried steak, mashed potato's, cream gravy, green beans.

Nini's Meat loaf, mashed potato's (sans gravy), carrots.

Pappy's spaghetti and meatballs with Bolognese sauce.

Pappy's fully loaded 3/4lb. double cheeseburger, with home made French fries.

Pappy's homemade cold cut combo hoagie sandwich, with Frito's.

Pappy's slab of smoked pork ribs, with baked beans.

Pappy's Hasty-Bake grilled steak (Filet or Ribeye), with Asparagus, and salad.

Supreme thin-crust pizza.

And soups of almost any kind.  My favorites are chili con carne, ham and beans with cornbread, potato soup, zuppa Toscana, meaty stew, and pasta Fazoli.  It doesn't have to be cold outside, I will readily eat hearty soups any day of the year.

My problem with comfort food is eating within my limits.  I know my limits, I just usually eat well past them; especially with fried chicken, chicken fried steak, pizza, soups, meatballs, ribs; oh heck, I eat well past my limits on almost everything.  Especially comfort food.

Why is comfort food called comfort food?  It sure does make me uncomfortable over-eating it.  It makes my waist line expand.  It makes my cholesterol go up.

I enjoy cooking.  I love food. 

I especially love comfort food! 

And today's delicious lunch:

  

'Country' Living for a Birthday!

As a young father, I always (and still do) want the best for my daughters, and we always wanted them to want to be at home.  My income level though sometimes prevented purchasing the best, and is why several of their pools were above-ground, before we were finally able to afford building a nice in-ground pool.  But, with the above-ground pools, they thought they were great, and so did their friends, and that is what we were striving for.  We wanted our girls to be home, and we wanted their friends coming to our house; not the other way around.

When I built them their first play house, it really was top of the line, complete with roof shingles, a fully functioning front door, and a partition over the window openings to help shield the rain.  It was built on joists to keep the floor dry, and the T-111 panels and cedar trim edges had 2 coats of paint. They loved it, and spent untold hours playing in it, as did the neighborhood friends.

The same held true when we installed the trampoline.  Wow, how many hours did I see kids jumping on that!?

The same held true when we installed a basketball goal in Dodge City, then on Narcissus, then on Oak, and then on Ashbury Ct.  By the time we had the last one up, the girls had grown to an age where their older male teenage friends would come over on Sunday nights after church for gorilla ball.  It was awesome; such incredible memories.  And yes, other than a lone game of 1 on 1 that I lost to James, my Won-Loss record against these youth went completely untarnished. :-)

Keeping with that theme, and now with six loved ones that call me Pappy or Paps, I still want the exact same thing.  I am blessed that all six still live in the same metro area, and for purely selfish reasons, I want our home to be the one that they want to come to!

This is one reason why we had this really nice play set installed 7 years ago.  It is starting to show its age, but Sunday at WP's party, it still had several visitors playing on it all day.

 



This is also why we have a fresh dump truck load of 12 yards of sandy loam delivered about every 2-3 years.  The pile is really getting low now, as the grass is growing over the base, and we are due for another dump of dirt before spring.  It is amazing how long kids will sit and dig holes in a big pile of dirt, and how many hours of fun they can have.

 

 

 

Due to Pam's allergies, we no longer can burn wood in either of our indoor fireplaces, but when we have friends and family over on chilly fall days; there is nothing better than to build an outdoor wood fire. This is from WP's birthday party, and adults took turns standing under the portable gas heater, or standing/sitting next to the fire that we kept roaring throughout the day.  Yes, that is Pam standing close to the fire smoke, but she did not stay there long.  (It was a very windy day, so 100% of the smoke did not go up the chimney.)

 

 

 

We hosted WP's (Will Parker's) 8th birthday party at our home on Sunday.  WP is totally into football, primarily OU, and this was one table of snacks.  The dining room table was also outfitted with additional OU themed food.  

 

 





 
One of the BIG benefits of living in the country is; wait, let me back up.  It's not really country.  We live in a one-street cul-de-sac neighborhood of 14 homes with lots that range in size from 1.25 to 2.5 acres. 

The neighborhood is between Broken Arrow and Coweta, and I don't call anything that is a neighborhood 'country' (though Pam certainly does) :-).  Ours is on a corner lot, with neighbors a full acre away; it is great.  Our lot is over 2 acres, and after 700 linear feet of wood privacy fence was installed 10 years ago, the back acre is fully enclosed.

This also allows for grooming of a private football field!  We scalped a good size version of field, and then painted the customary boundaries. The first few pictures here shows some of his friends just showing up and engaging in a scrum.  The 3rd picture is 'most' of the kids in a game. This is the one game that eventually had 18 players, and I played QB for each team.  TD's were counted as 1 point each, and WP's team won the marathon game 21-17.  I say marathon because while I lasted about 4 hours, WP and Flap Jack were still playing well after dark, and were the final two off the field. 

The only temporary game interruptions were for cake, singing, gifts, a special father/son game, and a few 'inside' pee breaks (though I was later told that a few of the boys also took it upon themselves to relieve themselves behind the trees.)

 

 

And this is one of many reasons why I love living in the 'country'.  It's only a 24 minute drive to the 'civilization' of 101st & Memorial; but still, one year soon, we will be gone from our current 'country' home as we have decided to downsize.

 

We have had it for sale for 2.5 years, and know that the law of large numbers will have it sold before that number turns to 5.0 years.  When it does sell though, we already own a smaller 1.1 acre 'country' lot at 141st & Sheridan in Eagle Rock that will have plenty of room for a really nice gunite swimming pool, an outdoor living area, and with just a big enough side yard to house a basketball court.  We will be building the home ourselves of course.  Most unfortunate though, there will not be room for a football field so that will make this past Sunday's memory a very fond one.

 

This Pappy will continue to provide things endearing to the loved ones, as we will ALWAYS want them (and their friends) to come to our home for special play times!  It is so much fun.

 

I am a blessed man, a much blessed man. 

Why I am 6xPappy

These incredible 6 are the reason my blog is called 6x Pappy.  I don't know if I am exactly right on their ages in ( ), but I do know after Ava's birthday in Feb., their ages will be 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

From Left:

Emma Jo (6.33), in the wind-chill near freezing temps last night, she threw in the bucket early.

Ava Corinne (8.75), she lasted quite a while, but she was the next to go.  I think she only had 2 buckets full of the sweet stuff.

Jack Arthur (7), he just radioed in to the tow truck operator that he is about to call it a night. He filled four of his six 55 gallon drums with candy, and they were ready for pickup.  We all agreed that 6 drums was a lofty goal, but 4 full drums should at least last him the week. 

Owen Michael (5.25), was of course the boldest of the night.  A few quips that were passed along were "Trick or Treat lady, now give me the candy!", and "Trick or Treat, I'm thirsty, can I have a drink please?" (yes, the wife provided Owen with the drink he needed).

Jared Henry (10), won the award for most disgusting outfit of the night, in a HazMat suit, that appears to be complimented by raw fecal material from the neighborhood dogs. 

Special note about Jared Henry, as I don't blog about him too often, but I got to see him play goalie on his soccer team last week, and he did great.  His team won that game 5-1, and he successfully defended all but 1 of 17 shots on goal from his position.  The one he missed was literally within whisker length of his fingertips, and he was completely horizontally stretched out in the air diving for it.  It would have made for a good camera photo.

His team had been taught how to play good defense too.  He always had 1 or 2 helpers in the box angling for steals; which was something the other team had not been taught, and was another reason his team won 5-1.

And, as you can see from this picture, he will be the tallest of the three.  At 10, and already standing 5' tall, my earlier prediction of 6'4" is officially adjusted to 6'5".  I'm going to stay with Owen at 6'4" because of his height reality too, and that is at age 5, he is taller than all 6 year olds, and as tall as some of the shorter 7 year olds, and Will to top out at 6'2".  Write it down, take it to the bank.  These are going to be some tall white boys.

Will Parker (8), is our current football star.  His teammates made it to the playoffs with only minimal contusions, I think one broken bone or sprain?, and thankfully no concussions; as this was the first year that LCS made the bone-headed decision that 2nd graders should be taught and practice the violence of tackle football. Idiotic.

Will's original costume was Mario, to be opposite Owen's Luigi, but football rules, so he made a quick costume change after the initial photo.

~

I love these 6 with all of my heart!  I am truly a blessed man!

Our Eagle

When we poured the driveway for our current home, approximately 10 years ago, we did not know it at the time, but we had poured it too close to this 90 year old and 70' tall Blackjack Oak tree. 

The Arborist that came out to cut it down after it had died in year two of us living here told me that it was because of magnesium and fly ash from the concrete that had leached into the feeder roots; clogged them, and led to the untimely death of this gorgeous tree.  Though we also have an incredible looking 100+ year old Pecan tree on our lot, this oak tree had been the most grand of them all.

I have always loved Eagles, not only for what they symbolize to us as a nation; but also for their majesty. I have watched documentaries on them, and to understand how God made them to fly like no other bird, makes them the most grand bird of all.

That is when I got the idea to hire Clayton Coss, the world's greatest chainsaw artist, to come out and turn the ruins of our grand oak tree, into an even grander Eagle sculpture.  And I wanted it to be a Momma Eagle, with 2 little eaglets in the nest being tended to.

This sculpture is of Momma Eagle just landing, surveying the area for danger, and preparing to feed her two young eaglets.

Because this is a dead tree, it will not last.  3 years ago, we hired Clayton again to cut off the base of the tree, and to permanently mount the Eagle sculpture to a decorative stone base that we had constructed. That helped to stave off water damage from the base.

It was time to spruce her up again this year.  She needed caulking in the cracks, she needed a new coat of weather proof stain/sealer, and she needed to have 3 squatters evicted.  The squatters were actual wood peckers that had bored 3 holes into her structure and nested.

Thanks to my good friend Kelly Wood, our Momma Eagle is now back to her previous majestic glory, beaming with pride from Kelly's latest restoration efforts.  She is now good as new for hopefully another 2-3 years.  Thank you Kelly.

At night, she beams with pride too.  Long ago, we installed an LED spotlight high up in another tree, and make our Eagle the primary focus of the spotlight.

Take a look:

This is probably as close as I will ever get to seeing one in real life; but to me, she is the next best thing to being there!

Cowboy?

 

 

Cowboy?

 

I am a hat guy; having worn them almost every day of my life since I was a young child.  Doesn't matter the kind, be it Ball caps, Beret's, Fedora's, or a Cowboy hat; you will see many photo's of me over the decades, and most of them include a hat if I am outside.

 

About 7 years ago, I primarily converted to a cowboy hat because it provides the greatest protection from the sun on my neck and ears.  I liked the look of cowboy hats, just had never worn them till then.  I've worn cowboy boots for longer than that out of pure comfort.  My boots are super comfortable, and quite warm in the winter.

 

I like country music.  But, I am not a cowboy.

 

I own guns, and I am *always wearing a gun (those idiotic door stickers mean zilch unless it is a school, a professional sports stadium, or any government building).  But, I am not a cowboy.

 

I drive a BIG truck.  But, I am not a cowboy.

 

I never worked on a ranch or a farm.  I have never rode a horse.  I have never milked a cow.  I have never shoveled manure.  I have never 2-step danced, nor been to a country bar.  I have never eaten calf fries, and, I hate rodeo's; having twice endured the torture of those at a young age.

 

So, my normal daily wardrobe is jeans, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, and a gun; and I'll be driving around all day in a BIG truck, rocking out to loud country (or pop) music.  And most likely, I'll be eating a big piece of dead cow for dinner.  But, I am not a cowboy.

 

HOWEVER,

 

Walking and driving around the New England states earlier this month on our leaf-peeping tour; from the amount of comments, to stares, to gawking, I was obviously a "Cowboy" to them.  I'm not a small guy; and standing 6'2" in my boots, with 225 lbs. on my bones, I dwarf a lot of folks. 

 

I am not intimidating on purpose, but I know that my girth and stature can freak out quite a few 'small' people. :-) 

 

Stepping off the elevator to my hotel room on day one, I was greeted with "Yippee Ki Yay" by a pair of octogenarians.  It took me a minute to recall where I had heard that, and it wasn't Roy Rogers, it was John McClain, and if you don't know what else John McClain said with it; let's just leave it at that.

 

At breakfast each morning in the hotels, I lost track of how many little boys and girls would stare at me like I just landed here from the moon.  Some of the comments I remember were: 

"Look Mom/Dad, a real Cowboy", "Giddy Up", "I like your hat", and "Howdy partner."

 

When we were out in public, many times I was asked by the locals, "Are you from Texas?"  I'd say, "No; Oklahoma."  To which a few said, "Oh, where is that?"  And I'd say, "It's on the dark side of the moon." I really did say that. Once. With a straight face. The tattooed young man looked back at me again like he was contemplating if I was telling him the truth..., and then he walked off.

 

People weren't rude, just inquisitive.  Finger pointing and quick head movements don't bother me.  I thought it was quite funny actually.  Who would have thought that seeing someone in a cowboy hat and boots was so rare back east?

 

Not a single time in 10 days did we see anyone else with a cowboy hat.  I was it.  I was the only one on the jets, the only one in the airports, and the only one through almost 1,400 miles of driving.

 

BUT, at the end, stepping into the DFW airport on our way home, what was I greeted by?  That's right, at every turn in the airport were other's, just like me, wearing boots and hats!  It felt so good to be home, even though it was Texas.

 

Happy trails to you, until we meet again . . .

 

~

 

*unfortunately, no guns were worn while traveling back east, as I didn't want to hassle with locking up my guns in checked baggage at the airport.

New England Steeple Churches

One of the prettiest and most enduring things about the New England states are the small rural towns, with populations ranging from 54 (the smallest that I saw a sign for), to 740 (the largest that I saw a sign for).  There were also quite a few cities of 1,100 to 1,500 in population that we saw. 

 

One of the local ladies at a tourist information center told me that 'towns' are less than 1,000 people, and 'cities' are 1,000+ people. 

 

We passed through no less than 100 (and it was probably twice that many) small towns driving through Vermont, New Hampshire, Mass., and Conn. 

 

Another culture shock to me is the age of these towns. Founded in 1612, founded in 1701, founded in 1675, and founded in 1629 were four of the oldest towns that I remember.  That is old for America.  That is nothing for Europe.

 

Many of these small towns had white church steeples that we were looking for, and some of the greatest foliage was around the same rural areas, or in their parking lots, or adjoining with neighboring sites or buildings.

 

We stopped for pastries and peeping in several, and even more small towns or cities for lunch if we saw a main street that had commerce.  Lunch was pretty much always the same: a strange sounding bistro sandwich with toppings and protein combinations that I had never heard of, paired with eclectic salads, and delicious home made soups.

 

I am not a picky eater.  Virtually everything was delicious to me.  But, the portions were consistently small from town to town, (not being able to fill either of my granddaughters had they been with us), and were radically overpriced. $11 to $15 for a lunch combo plate and Coke* was standard. 

 

*Back east is not Pepsi country, it is Coke country, and no one served true brewed iced tea either unless it came from a soda fountain dispenser like Peak.

 

My previous set of pics was a baker's dozen, so, sticking with that theme, here is another baker's dozen: