Ask yourself one question, when you see a kid skateboarding in a public area do you automatically think he is a punk or just a kid skating. In our town I have a feeling the answer is punk. Our youngest son has been skateboarding since he was 5. Dustin taught him to skate and they had big “Pro” dreams until Dustin died. Since then our youngest is more passionate than ever about skateboarding. He still has “Pro” dreams, but he has difficulty finding places to practice. Good blacktop is hard to find, especially when most of it consists of parking lots in which he must wait patiently for the businesses to close in order to skate. He is very respectful in not bothering other people, vehicles or surrounding property. He just wants to skate.

The summer has been full of stops by the police and area officials telling him he can not use their property. We live down the road from the township and across from the local park. The township kicks him out of the parking lot even after they are closed for business. The township park across the street only has a small parking lot to skate in and it is always full of cars. The local shopping center has a few small places that are not traveled by people or vehicles, but he was told he would destroy property so he could not skate there either.

I understand some of this to a point, there are kids that “skate” who are punks, but our kid just wants to skate! That is in his heart, it is all he talks about…being like Ryan Sheckler ….one day. The nearest skate park to us is over 30 miles away, so he just continues to look for a place where the people are nice and they have good blacktop….

This is to warn everyone of a scam that is coming through snail mail. I received a letter last week stating that I had won a prize in the 2008 North American Lottery. The letter was received in a plain white envelope with no return address (first red flag). When I opened the letter a very real check was enclosed. The check was written to me in the amount of $3955.00 and even had the watermark on the back making it very convincing. The letter stated that the company had been trying to contact me to disperse my winnings of $55,000. (the second red flag, I had not been contacted by anyone)

My husband being the optimist said I should call the number and hear what they had to say. The gentleman was extremely convincing. He even stated that the lottery was sponsored by Visa and Walmart. Well I use a Visa at Walmart all the time, so I continued to listen. At this point I was thinking maybe I really did win something. I even asked the guy if this was real and he stated “I have been doing this for over ten years and I assure you that it is real.”

Mr. Bob, as he called himself, said that $2900.00 of the check amount had to be paid to “Washington” for taxes on the winnings. (next red flag - taxes on $55,000 should be more than $2900.00) I was instructed to deposit the check and call Mr. Bob back to make arraignments on paying the $2900.00 and decide how I would receive the rest of my winnings. My choices were to have the winnings directly deposited in my account, cashiers check or money order. As I hung up the phone I started to get excited, thinking maybe the sun has finally shined on us.

THEN! My logical brain caught up and said “NO WAY”, something is just not right. I googled “The North American Lottery” and not to much of a surprise countless complaints about returned checks and scam artists. UUUGHHH! No free money for us! I found the number for the bank the check was drawn on. The address if the company “LexJet Corporation” was the same as the bank list. At this time I knew for sure that it was a scam, but I called the bank anyway. The response was just as I had thought, the check is no good and the bank agent gave me th number to the Canadian Authorities that are investigating the scam.

I called Joe at the toll free number and gave him the information. It seems that everyone in our county with a mailing address was sent the same scam. The letter varied and so did the check amount, but it was the same concept from the same company. Cash the bad check, wire them $2900.00, give them your banking information and BOOM - YOU’RE BROKE!

If you have received a letter like this one or a check please call Joe at the Canadian Fraud Department 1-888-495-8501. They are working with the FBI and USPS to try and catch these thieves. It is bad enough that many of us are already down on our luck we do not need someone out there trying to totally destroy us.

I have had enough with this crap called no-fault insurance! It is one of the biggest cons in the insurance industry. In case you are not familiar with no-fault laws I will put them in laymen terms for you.

Basically YOUR car insurance covers YOUR vehicle and persons in YOUR vehicle regardless of fault.

Here is where it kicks you in the ass……

Let’s say you do not have collision insurance on your vehicle, someone HITS YOU and its THEIR FAULT. If your vehicle sustains over $500 in damages you are entitled to what they call a mini-tort claim. The mini- tort is paid by the insurance company of the person at fault (providing they have this coverage, if not you have to sue them for it).

Someone hits you, it’s their fault …you get a SMASHED UP CAR and a measly $500!

Doesn’t seem very fair, does it? This has happened to me TWICE! It’s ridiculous!

Last Thursday afternoon coming from the HIGH SCHOOL I was hit by another driver. I had the green light and she BLEW through the red light into me at 45 MPH! Luckily I was turning and did not have my son with me. As I pulled into the nearest drive to get out of traffic she comes rushing up to me saying, “It was my fault, I did not realize the light was red”. She stated that she was worried about getting into the share a ride with the construction ahead and was not even looking at the light. Then she proceeds to tell me that she does not even live in the area, but wanted KFC so she got off on the previous exit and drove through Bridgeport.

For those of you who know our background you can imagine my anger. She ran a red light at 45 MPH at the High School intersection, minutes after school let out! Our son was killed just 100 feet down the same road two years ago! What if one of those students from the High School was crossing at the one and only crosswalk in town, the same crosswalk she just BLEW through to hit me! They would have had no chance against her SUV!

I was proud that I was able to keep my composure and not wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze tightly. I was so angry and distraught, so many bad memories of Dustin’s accident running through my mind. I just grinded my teeth, clenched my fist and tried to be patient as we waited for the police.

She was sited for failure to yield a red light. If the school signs we requested two years ago would have been put in place her citation would have been much worse or maybe just, maybe she would have seen the school signs and been more careful. (We were told by the Saginaw County Road commission that the signs were misleading to motorists)….what a crock of bull!

So this is the second time that I have a smashed car with no means to fix it. I will hopefully get the $500 mini-tort, but that won’t cover the $1500 in damage she caused because she was an idiot! The first time this happened I was hit from the rear at a red light, pushed through the intersection by a driver that had a suspended license!

The no-fault law also kicked us in the ass when Dustin was killed. At that time we did not have a running vehicle, (my husbands transmission went out) so we had no insurance. Since it is a no-fault state we received a mere $1400 to cover his funeral expenses that way exceeded $10,000 and our son was dead.

The state of Michigan says that no-fault insurance helps keep costs down, yet we have some of the highest rates in the country. We as citizens give up our right to sue when involved in an accident (unwillingly). Many of the people that live here don’t even realize what no-fault means. It only helps the person that is AT FAULT! How callous can you be?

The damn insurance companies have you again….all that money you pay them and you can’t even get your car repair when someone else is careless!

I think I may just be ranting and raging on here but what the hell.  I inventory myself on occasion and see who I am, and want to be.  It seems funny how you wake up one day and realize how things are different.  In young years it’s all about the boy you want to like you, the boy who is popular I guess.  The one you never feel pretty enough for.  As you get older you are looking for the man, not the boy, who appreciates you and takes care of you. Unfortunately there are still a lot of grown up “boys”.  They don’t take care of you like you want, they are still caught up in hanging out, life with their friends, how cool they look. When you now need them to be providers, lovers, and understand you more than you understand yourself, is it fair to them, no, but that’s what we need.  As a mom, you want to be a good mother, someone that your kids can look up to and love, and they do that until you both get older, then they are like ewww its my mom. I have learned a lot in my life, even though I am still searching for the same thing.  I have realized that I don’t need to change to make someone love me, I just need to find the person who loves who I am.  Being along a long time, you get set in your ways, I am not closed off to being with a man in a loving relationship, I just know that things that I feel I deserve and need are valid now.  The right man, will treat me like his queen, because that is how he looks at me.  NOT ask me to change to be the queen that he envisions. And as I believe that it is easier for a women to love a man than it is for a man to stay attracted to and love a women, I also think that we try too hard to be the one for him.  When he is the one desperately  looking for us also.  Love should not hurt, yet it does.  Love should compliment each other, want to love and be there for each other.  Love can be trying, but should always be more rewarding.  In my search I have come up with nothing, not that it is all bad, I believe in myself and my expectations can not falter because of the things that I have experienced.  No one could WANT to be in a loving relationship and have more kids, if that is not supposed to be part of their destiny.  So to my destiny, I call, eventually I will get there, the heartache along the way will make it better and more unforgettable when I find it. It is not wrong to ask for happiness, it is not wrong to ask for love, the trick is finding two people who can give that to each other and doing it as unselfishly as possible.  So here I sit, still waiting, and that’s ok since it will be well worth it in the end.  For all of my married family and friends that look down and say poor Amanda has not found anyone, save it.  I will, and it will be awesome.  Don’t pity me for being able to try with someone and realizing when it wont work, be grateful that I have not lost myself enough to settle for something that will not make me smile everyday and make my heart ache with love.

So here I am today, I might cry about this tomorrow, but I’ll be stronger in the end, for the man that can handle the strong and loving type, I will still be who I am, and for that I can hold my head up in any situation.

Time can change a person, and today I carry a purse way bigger than I ever thought I would, and I sit at my computer when I used to be too busy to check my email.  I buy planners to keep my life as organized as possible, when before it was just go with it.  I have grown up, I have changed, and I have gotten better.  I can still love the best love, Have the most amazing sex, find the most fulfilling job, hurt the worst of hurts, and that has NOT changed with age, but accepting who I am and knowing that I am worth it to someone else the way I am has.  I will find what I am looking for or it will find me.  And maybe it will take him some time to get to know me, and break through my own protection that I have put up, but it will be worth it all in the end to him, because what I expect for myself, I give to others.  And because I am worth it, it will be worth it. I originally sent this message as a bulletin on myspace.  Just because that was how I was feeling at the time.  But it is worth being said to another group outside of the myspace “friends list” that I have.  I am anxious today, irritated with life, but blessed all the same.  It may seem redundant that lonely single women always complain about what they need in men, but too bad.  Life is so full of the unexpected and I am here because I have a reason to be.  I am  mad that men and women are so different, I am sure men don’t know what to do with women either.  It is a vicious cycle.  What I do know is what women deserve, what we try to hard to do for men and then get let down because sometimes it’s work for them and they don’t have the ambition or want to waste the energy to get to know the women they want.  How can it be so easy and yet so hard at the same time.  It sounds so simple, love, respect, honesty, true generous caring, and putting someone besides yourself first.  I know what I said earlier in the post, I am who I am, that does not mean that I am incapable of putting someone else first.  I just think that in doing so I shouldn’t have to give up who I am also.  I am tired and I am frustrated that some men don’t realize that there are some very basic things that keep women happy.  So for those of you who don’t know, understand that we need attention, love, we want you to look at us like we are life itself, or at least feel that that is what you think of us.  Caring, listening, without always trying to fix it, and just basically knowing that you are where you want to be, we need to HEAR it, because we know you go to work to support us, but we want to know that you do it because you want to.  We are all about the feelings that men try to hide.  A good friend told me to leave it to GOD.  I am leaving it to GOD.  I know my time will come, but I am only human and I am not that patient after 12 years of doing it alone.  She also told me that maybe GOD meant for me to be alone in my life, I do not agree with her at all.  I think that if he meant for me to be alone, I wouldn’t be as passionate about spending my life with someone else, about having more kids.  I don’t think his intention is for anyone to be alone. I think that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks, I think that married people shouldn’t tell single people “it will be ok, you will find the right person” and then tell me something is wrong with me because I don’t have one.  Telling me I need to change the way I am to get a man is the worst advice I have ever heard, especially when about 95% of the married people that I know aren’t very happy. So I had a long conversation with GOD and let it all out, now I await his response as I try to listen to the answer he is giving me. GOD has made me the strong person that I am so why would he not pair me up with the man of my dreams (within reason, this is not a Cinderella story). All that I want I can have with his help. So to GOD I say, get on with it, I am ready to feel what I want to feel and share who I am and what I have.  I am ready to go to bed next to someone and to feel safe, I am ready to go through the fire and survive with someone.  I am ready to love with all my heart, and I am ready to find the one who is willing to fight together and who will love the same way.  I am ready to wake up smiling because that person makes me happier because they are there.  To share my life with someone, not just live in existence next to another person.

I set out to write an article about racism against “White American”. This issue has been eating away at me since the recent comments made public from Jeremiah Wright. In search of other opinions I kept running into one name that stood out Michelle Obama.

Not only did I find her tone racist, but very Anti-American. Yes, she is an accomplished professional, but a bitter one. Much of what she has to say mimic’s Reverend Wright just in a less callous way.

This article will now focus on the stomach turning remarks from the “Next Possible First Lady”.

Most of you remember the comment in Wisconsin that Mrs. Obama made

“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.”

Everyone makes mistakes so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, strike one. Maybe she just wasn’t thinking about all the wonderful accomplishment that our country has made over the years.

The Jeremiah Wright comments were released shortly after that. These were some of the most Anti-American remarks our country has heard and they came from the Obama’s Pastor. Hummm…Ok I will give the benefit of the doubt one more time, strike two.

Although in the back of my mind I kept the thought…… How could someone know a person for over 20 years, ask for their advice, but not agree with at least some of their beliefs? The Obama’s gave $22,500 in one year to the church that they “don’t” share the views of the pastor.

Then I find an article about Michelle spewing garbage about how America tried to hold her back as a child. She even goes as far as saying she was “set up” by America to not succeed. This was due to her poor performance on standardized tests that made it hard for her to attend Princeton. Michelle did end up getting into Princeton despite her low test scores because someone in America seen the potential within her. Although, according to Michelle she did it on her own with no help from anyone.

Below are some comments from Michelle Obama posted in an article in The New Yorker.

At a church in South Carolina she states:

“On behalf of my church home and my pastor, Reverend Wright, I bring greetings.”

Hmmmm…greetings from a person she supposedly does not agree with.

A comment made by Michelle to a co-worker when meeting Barrack for the first time:

“I figured that they were just impressed with any black man with a suit and a job,”

Another comment:

“What minority communities go through still represents the challenges, the legacies, of oppression and racism. You know, when you have cultures who feel like second-class citizens at some level . . . there’s this natural feeling within the community that we’re not good enough . . . we can’t be as smart as or as prepared—and it’s that internal struggle that is always the battle.”

A statement from Michelle after the Wisconsin primary:

“Black voters will wake up and get it.”

Three strikes and your out Michelle Obama.

I am not saying that Mrs. Obama is racist against whites….but it is hard to ignore the comments she makes and her affiliation with Jeremiah Wright.

So why does the black community feel the “white” people owe them something? As far as I know it was the “white” men that fought for the freedom of the slaves plus my ancestors were not in America until after the Civil War. I am not a prejudice person I do not judge black or white.

I understand that black Americans feel like we are holding them back, but in reality there are more programs helping Black Americans than White Americans thanks to Affirmative Action. A young black person would be considered for college or a job because they are black. Our white sons will get consideration based on their merits. Where does that leave us? Why are there “special rules” based on gender and race? That itself is racist.

Statistically the majority of black people have a harder time in life. Whether it is lower income, living in bad areas, or a higher crime rate it all statistically points to the black community. Does that mean that we should judge black people by that? NEVER! It means that they should stop blaming the white people and take pride in themselves.

Listen to Bill Cosby’s message: “You are the only one who can change your life, do not lay the blame on someone else.”

The bottom line is there are white people that are prejudice, but most of us have grown up and realized that it is individuals that cause their own problems, not just black people. We should treat each other as fellow human beings because we all have to live in the same world together.

This is a happy post to honor all Mothers and Single Fathers (we’ll call them mathers ). An intriguing headline this morning on Fox news reads: She’s Worth Every Penny it’s wonderful story about mothers (stay at home and working) that says if “paid” an actual salary we would make $117,000 a year! The tough part was the hours….

Salary.com did an accurate study of the amount of hours an average mother puts in. A whopping 94.5 hours a week! That equals 13.5 hours a day, which in my house the hours are a few more than that. Anyway…it’s pretty fair. So I sat down to figure out how much that would be an hour…..

Broke down into hourly rates - (union pay rules…..every mom runs her own union)

• $17.50 an hour for 40.5 regular hours (which are put in by Wednesday) = $ 708.75
• $ 26.25 an hour for 40.5 overtime hours (Thursday – Saturday) = $ 1063.13
• $ 35.00 an hours for 13.5 double time hours (Sunday) = $ 472.50
• Grand Total of $ 2244.38 a week or $ 116,707.76

Close enough for me. I am impressed that they gave mothers that much credit although we deserve a lot more. Remember that does not include those on call hours in the middle of the night when the kids wake up sick or have a nightmare. There are no true benefits per say, but the smile at the breakfast table in the morning makes it all worth it.

The forced on the job training prepares the average mom for all the positions listed below:
These are just to name a few….

• Housekeeper/Maintenance Personnel
• Cook
• Psychologist
• Teacher
• Accountant
• Manager

As Mothers Day approaches remember to give your mom the credit she deserves. She has worked hard through the years not for money, but for the satisfaction that you were happy, healthy and responsible.

To all Mothers and Mathers out there Happy Mothers Day!