WooHoo The Magic Kingdom!!

That's sarcasm ... not as in whoopee I get to go to the Magic Kingdom of Bingo!!  I guess I'm a glutton for punishment!!   It's just so much fun to be around the Volunteers ... we have a GREAT time which I very much enjoy.  It's never as much fun when the Castle Lawyer is missing in action, but we have a good time none the less.

It was payday for the peasants, meaning instead of our usual numbers in the 90's, we had 135 people crammed into our small enclosure.  It's really not THAT small, but when you have each person taking up four feet of space for all their cards, dobbers and good luck charms, it gets pretty crazy.
With that many people, our cash soared, which means the corresponding cash POTS soared also.  We gave out $250 for each game instead of our usual $100 for half of them.  Needless to say, the peasants LOVED it!!

WE would love it a little more if we could figure out why one game won't verify on the fancy new Bingo Machine.  I have no clue how it works, but if you punch in the number on the winning card, the machine knows whether or not it really IS a winner.  When it DOESN'T know, there's an uproar of epic proportions!!

I ran the register again, balanced ... well close enough for government work ... and had my usual hotdog indigestion an hour after eating.  We discussed my truck lightbulb problem and where to get the oil changed on my filthy Jeep which hasn't seen water since Yuma.  It also dawned on me that the Jeep probably needs new tires.  All that becomes my problems of the week.

There's a lock on the Auto Row service center because the same guy owns four of them, making the prices through the roof, so I'm not going there.  We actually have a new Schwab's tire center, our trusty Merced Tire owned by one of the remaining honest business owner in the County, along with Schoettlers.  I'll call all of them.  Costco tires are not on my list since I bought four brand new ones several years ago, three of which blew out going down the freeway.  Scratch off Costco!!

At any rate I arrived back home exhausted and wide awake.  It's funny, no matter how late I go to bed, I STILL wake up at 5:00.  

Here's a picture of yesterday's masterpiece!  There are SO many ways to use pots and pans that I never considered.  THIS is Taco Pie ... I call it Tamale Pie.  It's usually made in a casserole dish, but with Instant Pot cooking, you use push bottom pans (the bottom is a separate piece that when pushed up, releases the food from the pan sides) or springform pans (same idea but with a clip on the side).  

I always use those pans for things like cheesecake ... dessert type recipes.  In the Instant Pot, you can use them for cooking any casserole dish.  It came out pretty cool and mighty tasty!!  Another plus, the pan is actually only 8" around, making it much easier to cut out smaller proportions.  Like the upside down salad bowl for a cake pan ... who would have thought of this stuff??  Certainly not ME!!

I was hoping when Barbara Westerfield read yesterday's blog that she would let me know where we were when I ruined the Jeep light connections by cutting them in half.  It was Charleston West Virginia.  We were in West Virginia??   Honestly, we were in so many States and so many places ... I remember everything that happened and what we saw, I just don't remember what State we were in.

We drove down Highway 114 (South in this picture) to the Elks Lodge Entrance where you see not one, but TWO hairpin turns to get to the parking lot on top of the hill.  It was also UP a very steep hill, which caused me to drag my lovely bottom, cutting the wiring in half.  I was already freaking out because we were on a 30 degree hill at a dead stop (seemed like 90 degrees to me) while Tom navigated the second hairpin turn by going forward and backward a few times.  Had I known I had no brakes on the Jeep I probably would have passed out cold!!

Finally at the top, we parked in the lot and plugged into 110 while the nice gentleman at the lodge told us to keep our garbage in our rigs due to the influx of bears into the neighborhood.  Oh yeah ... THAT made me feel better!!  It was then I realized my problem, whereupon Barbara and Tom grabbed their tool box and pulled out all the necessary connector thingies and tape to fix it.  If it weren't for them, THAT would have been a rather expensive repair.  It's still holding to this day ... four years later.  

There's lots on my plate today, including Tamale Pie.  I hope to get the Jeep taken care of and drop off four quilts to my Quilter, along with a haircut and more weed spraying.  The joys of home ownership ... I've got a sprinkler valve leaking badly that needs repair and that light fixture to replace.  I guess I better get my little tushy in gear!!!