Dear Roger: At Long Last, Hope...Coupled With Stress, Of Course

He finally agreed! After more than a year of me begging and pleading and trying to convince him it was the right thing to do, my ex finally agreed last night to let me have my sons!! Now all I have to do it figure out how to get down to Flagstaff to get them and then back to Portland. I dont have a car. I don't have any spare money, and I have no idea how the hell I am going to do it, but I have to. My ex got a foreclosure notice and he is losing the house by the first part of October, he has absolutely no money, in fact they cannot even buy gas to get to town, which is probably a good thing considering my ex most likely has a suspended drivers license. He is selling off things to raise money to buy things like tolite paper and dog food. He doesn't want to send the boys to school when it starts on Thursday down there because they don't have decent shoes. I have to go get them. I was up most of last night trying to figure out how to to it. I have looked at Amtrak tickets, car rentals, and I have been emailing friends. Today is going to be spent trying to get ahold of my Domestic Violence case manager to see if he has any resources he can tap to help me out to go get them. I have estimated I can do it for around $1000. Thats if I rent a car and drive, sleeping in the car,and packing my own snacks and keeping it conservative. The train would run about the same amount, though it would take longer due to just how damn slow Amtrak is. I haven't even considered flying because flying into Flagstaff would be insanely expensive. Last time I looked into the bus, that was almost as high as flying, which was just crazy. Im contacting friends, rattling cages all over in the hopes that I can get this to happen. This is the first hope I have had in so damn long. He has given up and he wants them out of there so he can concentrate on packing up his stuff and getting it out before the house is taken away.

There are things there that I want to get as well, but my boys are my priority. Things can mostly be replaced, other than my uncles painting, but I dont even know how the hell I am going to get that back home.

I need to get them before school starts up here on the 7th of Sept, that way I can get them to the doctor, get them some stability and somehow get them what they need. I am going to have to work 4 jobs and have less than 2 lives, but at least my sons will be home!