The loss, the birthday and the future

As I sit here looking at my blank page, I wonder where to even begin. I guess the beginning will be sufficient. About a month ago the County laid off close to 60 employees and a chunk of them were in Stephen's division. Well, 3 of those employees took their case to the appeals board and won. So, this meant Stephen was next to go. Sure enough, at 7:30 this morning he met with his boss and he's officially been laid off from the county. He's been with the County for 15 years. This of course doesn't matter one bit as he's only been a Senior Engineer for 2. The 3 people that won their appeals have been Senior Engineers for 2 1/2 years, so they beat him by about 6 months in the Seniority chain, even though Stephen was hired with the Building Department 3 years before they were and, like I said, the County for 15 years.

We are unsure about our future. He has contacts with professional Engineering firms here in Vegas. One company is located here, in San Diego, and in Augusta Georgia. The part that scares me the most about this is our Medical Benifits. They run out at the end of the month. Our eldest is on meds for his ADHD and they aren't cheap WITH insurance. I can only imagine what they'll be without. Part of me feels like maybe this is trying to tell  us something. Stephen has always wanted to move back to California. If there are positions in San Diego, I can picture myself living there. I guess I feel like Vegas is slowly dying, since we are the worst city in the nation as far as digging ourselves out of this recession. So, maybe God is trying to tell us to bail now! Who knows. All I know is that I love Stephen with all my heart and I know this is very difficult on him. He has a lot on his shoulders in trying to stay strong for me and his kids. He wants to be the "man" and support us in all of this and deep down I know he feels like a failure. WHICH he is NOT! He knows as well as I do that we had no control over this matter.

To top the day off today is his 40th birthday. What a way to spend it huh? I don't know what to do for him to make it special, but I'm certainly going to try my best. I know this will go down in the history books as the WORST birthday EVER!