It hasn't been a good week.

The only thing keeping me going.

This week has been a pretty bad week. The first bad thing is that on Wednesday, Sarah got into a car wreck when she was leaving work. Someone was coming but they had their blinker on and were slowing down like they were going to turn in. She went out but they kept going straight. They told the officer that they were slowing down to turn in down the road, despite the fact that the next turn in was at least 150 feet down the road and it would have been irresponsible to turn on their blinker and slow down that early. She is fortunately completely fine despite the fact that, even at the slow speed the accident occurred at, this is what happened to her car

The door is ruined, the frame where the door latches to the car is bent, nothing forms a seal to keep out the elements, the door doesn't open, and the inside is a bit squished too. The paramedics and the officer were very surprised that she was okay. They would look at the car and then back at her and ask, "Are you sure you're okay." We went to the doctor the next day just to make sure and yeah, she's okay.

Right now we're in the how-much-would-this-cost-to-fix-and-would-it-be-better-just-to-sell-it-for-parts-and-buy-something-else phase. We're looking around and will hopefully have that cleared up in the next week or so. We're going to start by trying the maybe-we-can-just-use-one-vehicle strategy, with our schedules it will probably work, even if it may trap her at home when I'm at work (unless she wants to take me to work <wink>).

It gets worse
At work on Friday we learned that the medicare contract that we work is (finally) going to be awarded to another company. This means that at some point in the next (roughly) three months I won't have a job there anymore. They're looking for work to do once the contract expires, but everything that's been talked about essentially wouldn't include me.

This contract bidding process has apparently been going on for five years, and was something that I knew about when I accepted the job. I accepted the job because, well, I hadn't had a 'real job' doing statistics before and I definitely needed the experience/recommendation/everything so that I could leverage it for a job that I really wanted. I even knew that we would be hearing about the contract this week or next and I knew that we probably wouldn't get it, but actually having it happen really hits hard.

So now begins the process of looking for a new job. Although I'm certainly going to be checking local (central Arkansas) places for jobs, I'm not optimistic of the prospects. So I'm definitely going to be checking other states (mostly more northern states) for places to work. I'll also be doing online searches and other things. You'll probably hear more about this in the future from me. I have literally drawn up a document that I have called my "Action Plan" for how I'm going to deal with this.

If I had to describe everything in a picture, it would be this:

OH, and Fred broke my watch last week, also. It wasn't intentional, since he's a cat and I don't think he harbors ill will against my watch, but it is no less frustrating. It's just the band and I'm 99% sure it can be fixed, but UGH.

There are some other things going on now, but they aren't definite so I won't talk about it yet. This would be something very positive that I'm quite excited about. It's a reaction to what has happened above and would make me very happy.

1:44

One day, a about two weeks ago, I saw a post it note on the handrail in the stairwell. The note read "1:44." I have no idea what it was about, who put it there, or what happened/happens at 1:44. What I do know, is that every day, for at least a week the note would be in a different position. 

At first it seemed like it was slowly moving up the rail. Then one day it was on the wall. I kept thinking that I should go to the stairs at 1:44, just to see if anything would happen. I could never remember to, thought; I'd always get wrapped up in my work.

Then one day last week, it was gone. I looked far and wide for it. After all, maybe it had just gone somewhere hard to see. Every day I look for it as I ascend the stairs to the fourth floor, and every day I don't see it. What was it? What happened at 1:44? Now I'll never now. What did I miss? Was it somehow my chance to be transported to a magical world? Did I miss the portal to Narnia, Fillory, or Hogwarts?

Now I feel a sort of emptiness when I walk up the stairs, their barrenness a reminder of what I missed. I ponder placing my own sticky note there to see if anyone comes to meet me. I wonder who, if anyone, will.