Links for C.M.

I know this is an odd way to send you these links, but I can't figure out why the email keeps getting sent back to me. 


I've made a list of the sites I used to search for jobs.  I hope you can find at least some of them useful!

Staffing Agencies:
Office Team--I would only use them if you could assure they would NOT contact your present employer.
Express Employment  --They never placed me in any positions, but I have had two friends who have had success with them.
Kelly Services  --they may specialize in jobs other than office work, but it's worth a shot!
Remedy Intelligent Staffing  --they may specialize in jobs other than office work, but it's worth a shot!

Local job search engines:
Lex18 Jobs
Tops in Lex
Kentucky Works
Indeed --many of the job postings on here are also found on KY Works

Jobs at Universities:  I have found this to be the most difficult 'nut to crack', but you never know!
Eastern Kentucky University
University of Kentucky
Sullivan University
KCTCS
ITT

Best of Luck!

Valentine's Day

Beauty in the World...

This song just makes me happy:

Beauty in the World by Macy Gray

Enjoy!!

Chinese New Year Temple Visit

In the Chinese culture, it is customary for the families to visit the the husband's side on New Year's Day and then with the wife's side the day after.  I was honored when my friend Bettie invited me to visit with her family at a Buddhist temple in the mountains of Tainan.  Bettie along with her father, her son, and friend Yuki, picked me up in the morning. I was nervous that the weather wouldn't cooperate for us, but I had nothing to worry about.  It turned out to be a gorgeous day!

Our first stop of the day was a Buddhist and Daoist Temple.  These are the first images of our surroundings:

These mountains were absolutely breathtaking:

The first thing I did was purchase a flower in a vase as an offering to the Gods. 

I was told to choose the one that 'spoke' to me.  This flower grabbed my attention right away, so I knew it was the right one.

Here's the flower that Kaiser chose. (I just love his traditional Chinese outfit!)

This is where we offered our flower to the Gods.   You first bow three time, state your name, birthday, address, and then say your prayer.  You then put down your offering and bow three more times before you walk away.  Here is a picture of Yuki:

We walked into an open area with people dancing, chanting, and walking to other temples with their offerings.  In this video, you will see people walking with their offerings over a bridge.  As they walk over the bridge they are walking away from the bad things for the last year and into the good things that this new year has to offer.

There were beautiful orchids all around the temple. Here is just one picture because I will have more to show you later on in this post:

 Picture of Yuki and me:

Picture of Yuki, Kaiser, and Bettie:

Bettie, Kaiser, and me

The next part of our vist included paper money offering:

I wrote my name, birthday, address, and wish for the new year on this paper doll and tied it to my offerings.  I placed it in a shallow bowl made of straw.

 Before going in to the following tent, someone danced around me with an incense stick to let the Gods know I was here to make an offering.  I went into the tent and was instructed to remove all of my jewelry and shoes. A straw bowl was filled with rice and place on the ground in front of me. I placed my left foot and my right had in the rice and then closed my eyes.  I really didn't kow what was going on around me because I didn't want to be rude and open my eyes!  I did smell incense and sometimes I could feel heat (from the incense stick?) around my forehead. 

We contined on through this large enclosed bride that had these beautiful red lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Each lantern had the name of a person and their wishes for the new year attached to it.

As we left the bridge, a woman was there to greet us and performed the following dance around us:

We now entered the Daoist temple area.  There was a monk who was kind enough to share facts about the Daoist religion with me.

We continued down the path to the next temple.

This is where I handed off my paper offerings.

 

There was so much smoke that you could hardly see the statue and other offerings.

Here is a video showing you how beautiful everything was that day:

Here are a few pictures of our lunch: 

Bettie's mom made this delicious milk tea with pearls.  She rolls the tapioca 'pearls' by hand! They are made from yuca root.

We all shared these two dishes: dumplings and the white squares are made from a vegetable in the carrot family.  They were eaten with soy sauce and were very yummy!

I also ate a very spicy soup with noodles and cabbage.

Kaiser was so hot in the car and he was wearing his sunglasses and rockin a mohawk.  hehe...

After our wonderful temple trip, we visited Jumbo Orchids farm! They are well known and have won many awards for the flowers. They were actually preparing for an orchid conference in Tokyo. There were certain flowers I wasn't able to photograph because they were new species!  They were all so beautiful! 

Mangoes are also grown in Tainan, so the last stop of the day was a very popular mango ice cream shop.  It was a bowl of shaved iced topped with frozen mangoes, mango syrup, and a scoop of mango ice cream. YUM-O!

I thought we were all sharing this one bowl--I thought wrong! This was all mine!  I was excited...



My trip to the temples was an amazing experience.  I am so thankful to Bettie for sharing her family with me and allowing me to be part of this special day.  The mountains were beautiful and there was a feeling of peace that came over me while we were in the temples.  I will never forget this wonderful day.  :-)

Urban Garden Video

Click here to watch Our Urban Garden video

Just a pretty picture of flowers... :-)

Urban Garden

I didn't have a chance to write about my trip to the temples yet. So sorry! Soon...I promise...

We spent the day enjoying the beautiful weather. Tomorrow I will also post a video of the 6th floor of our building. We are very lucky to have such an oasis to ourselves! Well, almost. We only have to share it with the landlords and the 4th floor tenant.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Stay tuned...

There will be more pictures like this posted tomorrow. AND I'll tell you all about my wonderful experience at the Buddhist & Taoist Temples, orchid farm, and mango ice cream shop! :-)

Girl's Day Out

Jennifer and Sabrina invited me to go shopping with them today. Many stores were still closed for the holiday, so we went to a large department store.  We had a late lunch...(which was Yammy!--hehe... mispelled signs everywhere in the food court!)

...and then after a bit more shopping, we realized it was already 5:30!  We set out to look for a specific tea house, but after about 30minutes of walking we found out it was closed.

We back tracked and went down this beautiful alley with many little shops and stands.  I've only been here during the day and thought that it looked just as nice lit up.  There were still many Chinese New Year decorations and lanterns.

We stopped and had some yummy traditional Tofu Pudding.  This had red beans, peanuts, and 'pearls'.

 

Jennifer loves sunglasses!

New Year's wishes printed on rabbit cutouts. 

This picture of the lanterns doesn't even do them justice!  They looked really cool!

Jennifer and I are standing in front of the Confucious Temple sign. (I think!)

Jennifer and Sabrina

We had such a nice day walking around and shopping!  :-)

Tomorrow I'll be going to the mountains with Bettie and Yuki to visit with Bettie's mother for the New Year.  I feel honored that I was invited!