Car problems

Earlier this week we were driving our 2003 Ford Focus and noticed that it was having a hard time shifting gears. Whenever we hit about 40 mph, the engine would rev and then the whole car would jerk into gear. Now I don't know too much about cars, but even I realized that this was not normal and decided to take it to a mechanic. He said that we had transmission failure. Transmission failure=Big Money. We're hoping it will be ready by Monday or Tuesday, and thanks to Clay's mom's generosity, we are not completely car-less. I'm driving a minivan much sooner than I anticipated:) The funny thing is, we were saying a few days earlier that it was a reliable car and that we hadn't had any major problems...I guess we spoke too soon.