First i apologize that I’m posting so much, but i feel the need to write, so i am. And i most likely will be stealing some of this stuff to put on my myspace blog too. Which is www.myspace.com/ldyminerva if anyone is interested. 

Every once in awhile i stop and think about how i don't feel 31, i still feel 21 and i think that has a lot to do with the fact that is the age when i became a single mother. Those where traumatic times for me; I was 20 when i got pregnant, the guy was 28. I was living in a town where i knew virtually no one. When I finally admitted to myself and to him that I was pregnant, he did what any mature man would do and that is he yelled at me for a month to get an abortion, poisoned me, cheated on me and then finally threw me out in the middle of the night but not before taking a knife to me and threatening to cut my baby out.

So it’s safe to say that who ever I was before that point in my life was gone. I became a shell of a person. But looking back I am really proud of myself because that baby he wanted me to kill is my precious 9 year old daughter now. And who ever I was before that maybe gone but over all I like the person I have become. 

But that all strays from my main point, which is will I ever get past 21? Will this traumatic event in my life ever let me see myself as this older me? I don’t feel like a mom or a wife. I am both of those things and I love being them……but deep down I still think I should be going out and drinking and having fun….because that is what I gave up in order to have my child. 

I lost my train of thought so I guess I’ll end by saying, I have done so many things in my life that I am not proud of. I have slept with men because I didn’t care about myself, I have done drugs, I have drank too much, I have lied, I have stolen, and so many other things I’m sure the rest of the world would find appalling, but in the end I don’t care what the rest of the world has to say about my life. In the end I did the best I could and in the end when it came down to the thick of things, I was able to hold my ground when it really mattered, I was able to keep my convictions intact, and I was able to raise a wonderful child by myself for 4 years. After 4 years I meet my husband and he’s been helping ever since. 

“Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom that said he was in love
He said, "don't worry about a thing, baby doll
I'm the man you've been dreaming of."
But 3 months later he say he won't date her or return her calls
And she swear, "god damn, if i find that man I’m cuttin' off his balls."
And then she heads for the clinic and
She gets some static walking through the door
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner
And they call her a whore
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
'cause then you really might know what it's like to have to choose” - Everlast 

 I want to add a disclaimer here, i am pro choice, I choose to keep my child but that doesn't make me any better or any worst then someone who made the choice not to keep the child. It's the hardest choice one has to make and which ever choice you choose is hard and i respect any woman (and man) who had to make that choice, no matter what they ended up choosing.

Dear Senator Birkholz, 

I ask you to consider voting to keep our civil service pay increases this April. Senate Appropriations Chair Ron JELINEK says "hardworking families and private sector employees have faced layoffs, pay cuts, loss of benefits and other employment concessions," and "In these difficult and uncertain economic times, it would be fiscally irresponsible and grossly unfair to raise taxes on Michigan's hardworking citizens while providing salary increases to state government employees,"

Am I not a hardworking citizen of this State? I am the bottom rung when it comes civil servants. In recent years I have been asked to do the job of what 8 people use to do; now there are only 2 of us left. And those 8 people who where here before me where paid more and where higher levels then what I am.

I make less then $35,000 a year (as a Senator you make how much money?) and I am forced to support a family of four on this income because since times are so tough my husband is laid off. I am depending on that raise to help me make ends meet because right now, I can’t even pay my consumer energy bill. 

The State Of Michigan is where I have grown up. Both my parents are civil servants; I call this the family business. But in recent years I have seen this great State of mine deteriorate. We have the 2^nd highest unemployment rate and one of the largest out of state migration of citizens that I have ever heard of. If things do not change, I and my family are going to be forced to leave this state, the only place I have ever known as home, to find a better place to live. 

Meanwhile, I sit at my desk and watch people being promoted to positions that don’t need to exist.  I see a government that is so top heavy that it has to fight to find things for these upper management types to do. In the 3 ½ years I have been where I’m at, we have moved 3 times and have been reorganized at least twice. None of this has changed what I do or what I call my job. But it wastes state funds by hiring moving companies and having to change all the forms that we use. Offer the early out so we can loose some of the dead weight on top that is pulling us down. There are other ways to cut funds in the state without cutting my increase that is less then a week away. 

The Two-Party Monopoly needs to stop! You have to stop fighting each other with such hatred that nothing gets done and we citizens suffer. Open your eyes and see the real problems of the working class, and not just what special interest groups bring to you. No one is fighting for me and the thousands of people just like me. The ones that don’t have a special interest group, the ones living pay check to pay check, just trying to survive and raise our families in peace. But we are getting sick off it and we will start voting in third party people no matter how hard (and unfair) it is to do so.