UPDATE:

I just got the news...Shelter #1 has a space for us!!!

I'm currently packing up some stuff to head down there post haste!

I'm extremely relieved and so grateful too that it's the same shelter we were at, so moving to ANOTHER place won't mess with Roger's head too much. He may be an adaptable kid, but we've moved around so much in the past couple months. It's hard to be sure how much he's internalizing about it and he's still pretty non-verbal so he can't say... So moving to another shelter had been a concern of mine, and now I don't have to worry.

FYI: Shelter #1 does NOT have internet access, so if you don't hear from me, that's why. I tried to update via the email function here but it didn't work, so...

I'm also relieved that we still have this hotel room until next Wednesday, so I can continue to come back here, clear out slowly, and still be able to use the TV and the internet until then.

I want to thank everyone DEEPLY for all the love and support you've shown me and my family over the past few weeks as I dumped my depression and anxiety into this little box... It really did mean a lot to me.

Now...back to the business at hand!

Ciao for now!

Well, I was right in the middle of writing an update here...just about to get down to the nitty gritty...when the baby turned off the computer...

I could be really mad about that (i was) but it kind of illustrates the whole point I was trying to make anyway.

I am not the woman I once was. So much has changed.

My friends list was filled with all kinds of men and women, both near and far, many of whom I used to meet up with regularly to get drunk in public venues.

Yesterday I guess I was feeling lonely, and I ventured into that friends list only to find that most everyone I once knew was gone. Some of whom haven't written an update since 2007.

Then, to add insult to injury, a friend of mine approached me about possibly being on a build team for the show "Car Warriors" which premiered last night. I responded by saying;

"Of course I'd be interested in the details, except for these three things...
1. I'm a good 200 lbs now and not really presentable for TV.
2. It's been a really long time since I really got dirty working on cars.
3. Child care."

I watched some of the premier regardless, as he'd suggested...and all it did was leave me with the overwhelming feeling of loss. I've lost everything I once held dear. My looks. My independence. My skills. My motivation to follow dreams like they could ACTUALLY come true. My faith.

My profile blurb says, "Holliday may be the most lovable asshole you'll ever meet." And gods help me, that was once true.

Now I would give anything to be that asshole again...and not this fucking loser I've become.

What's worse than my husband's drinking?

Child Protective Services.

I may have walked out on him, deep in the middle of the night...but it was never my intention to:
a) never see him again, or
b) keep him from the children.

We've had CPS involved in our lives once before, and it wasn't nearly as traumatizing as I'd imagined it might be. My husband grew up on foster care and holds deep hate for the agency...but even HE warmed up to our worker and we actually got a lot out of the experience. We were able to have a counselor come to our house once a week, and we got free day care for our oldest son, which was a blessing for all of us. Even when he was abusing his ADD/ADHD medication and I called my worker and declared I was practically packing my bags as we spoke...they never made any of us the enemy...in fact, they seemed to genuinely care about not only me and the kids, but my husband as well. Truth be told, I was kind of sad when we closed up the case so we could move to Texas.

However...it turns out that CPS in Texas is an entirely different thing. It IS exactly the thing that nightmares are made of. When I mentioned CPS involvement to one of the ladies on my floor in the shelter, she said that CPS had come TO the shelter and taken her kids, straight from her arms. She told me the story, and I'm sure it was one sided...but nonetheless, it scared me to death. I said, "CPS" and it was like, all their ears perked, and they jumped to attention, gathering around and warning me, warning me, warning me...

Even the counselor I went to see in shelter warned me. She said that in Texas, CPS's philosophy is that BOTH parents are abusive and/or neglectful, and that indeed I WAS in danger of losing my children because I had allowed "it" to happen before.

I've met with the CPS worker...once. I told her the story of my family and she made me sign a piece of paper stating that I would not bring the kids around my husband unsupervised. And then she disappeared as if into a cloud of magical smoke...never to be seen or heard from again.

I called her to let her know when my husband got into detox and I left shelter for the hotel, but she didn't seem impressed.

My husband called her to tell her he was on the waiting list for the 3 month program in San Antonio, but she wasn't impressed.

Not even when my husband asked SPECIFICALLY what course of action he needed to take to have this "daddy ban" lifted, did she have answers.

All she's ever said to me is, "sign this paper," "you'll probably have to take a parenting skills class...", and "we're opening a case..." But she's made no move to assist me in finding this class, or inform me what our "case" will entail. She hasn't even called to check in on the family. If she had, she'd know how much MORE stressful our lives are now due to the "daddy ban."

It's been three weeks now and she's never picked up the phone to contact either one of us.

My husband spent at least two days trying to track her down so he could fax her a "release" in hopes that we may be able to have the sober shelter he's living in declared a "safe zone" for him to visit with the kids.

It's really just fucking ridiculous. How can they claim to protect my children when they're not even calling to ask if we're OK? Does she know if my kids are stressed or sad because they can't see Daddy? Do they know how stressed MOMMY is? No, and I suspect they don't care.

Again...this all just makes me wonder if leaving that night was the right thing to do, even though both my husband and I agree that it definitely WAS. The mess that CPS is making in our lives, causing strife without reason, complicating an already complicated situation...is totally uncalled for... I don't feel strong for having left, now I just feel like an asshole...and I'm pretty sure that wasn't what I was going for when I walked out.

CPS=major fail

So...today is a new day. It's at least SLIGHTLY less aggravating than yesterday, but maybe that's simply due to the fact I'm not REALLY trying to make things happen today.

Truth is, much of my life is sorta out of my hands at this point. I've put my calls in to the right people and now I just have to wait. Waiting sucks...

So...while I wait, let me update you a little on what's been happening since last we spoke.

I am now in Texas. Yeeeeehaw!!

My family and I arrived in San Angelo, Texas back in November after a long, overly dramatic day of travel. We spent the next couple of days relaxing and regrouping. And after that it pretty much went straight down hill.

My birth mother, who had been so excited to have us over the summer, apparently wanted absolutely nothing to do with us now. Any time at all we tried to spend together her boyfriend quickly monopolized. When she took a day off of work to be with us, he called, every five minutes, and then, showed up and "needed" her for something, and then HAD to go eat...leaving me and my family all dressed and ready to go run some much needed errands...standing there like assholes...

Unfortunately it didn't get much better than that.

Thanksgiving came and we were all looking forward to our first Family Gathering. I slaved over a hot stove cooking up all our favorite holiday things, and she barely bothered to show up. She'd gone to Thanksgiving at her boyfriend's family first, watched the game and then GRACED us with her presence briefly before going home. I felt so fucking jipped. Everyone was upset about it. I assured my newly found little sister that Christmas would NOT be the same. My family would spend the WHOLE day with hers and it would be awesome.

Finally our moving truck showed up, after about a month, and we happily moved from her house into the apartment over the garage. We fully expected that having our own space would make things better. They didn't.

Christmas came and I kept my promise. We showed up early, lit the fire in the pit in the backyard, and threw back some beers while waiting for the food to be done. Then, the ex showed up. My birth mother's ex. It got tense then as my sister's knew 'mom' had to be told and that would mean she wouldn't come.

She came. But only to drop off the food she'd been in charge of bringing. And no, she didn't get out of the car. She didn't want the kids to know she was there. She didn't apologize and she didn't wish us a merry christmas. She simply had her boyfriend drive her over, handed us the food through the car window, and drove away. And y'know what's funny about that...I actually had a great time laughing it up with her ex, who is supposed to be a horrible person, but clearly showed more interest in getting to know me than she did.

And he shared some really interesting thoughts on our situation...but I'll bring that up again later.

Anyway...so we managed to squeeze out a pretty righteous Christmas.

And then, she kicked us out.

I had written something about hating someone fat (on facebook) and she texted asking who I was talking about, assuming it was her or her boyfriend. She was right, it was her boyfriend, but I wasn't about to dwell on that point. I tried to make it clear that we didn't hate her, in fact we were really disappointed in the way she didn't seem to want to spend any time with us...she went on and on about how disrespectful we are and how they "shouldn't be put through this" or some such shit. I suggested we sit down and talk, since it had clearly gotten out of hand...which she agreed to, and right when the situation seemed to be looking up...she said she'd only sit and talk to me if her boyfriend was there. I said I only wanted to speak to her, and then she asked us to leave. She said she'd give us help with rent to live somewhere else or whatever...and that was pretty much the last I heard from her.

A week passed. Another week. And no word on how she planned to help us move, now that we'd spent all of our money to GET to San Angelo. I texted, she ignored me. I taped a letter to her door, she ignored it. Finally one day I waited for her boyfriend to leave for work and I stood in the driveway waiting for her. I asked if she was going to help us move, and she went on and on about how much she looooooved me and all this. I was like, just help us get out of here. I texted her after she'd gotten in her car and said I'd make myself available if she wanted to sit and talk.

She responded by telling me there was no point, we had nothing further to discuss, and I wasn't to contact her again in any way from that point on.

So much for the fairy tale...right?