It had been a bit of a month. 😳

Superman was hospitalized for nine days following an unexpected emergency surgery, my sweet daddy got a flat tire on the side of the highway trying to bring Super-Spouse's car to us at the hospital and a huge rock hit and dented the Mom Beast Bus windshield, creating a crack that is continuing to grow to this I'm-still-ignoring-it day.

By the time Superman and I arrived home following eight NPO days of no food or drink and one day of total hospital lasagna bingeing (note to you: hospital lasagna does not indeed taste like real, actual pasta and should not be consumed like bowls of ice cream unless said participant would like to feel ill for exactly 73 days later), we had less than a week to prepare for the family coming into town to celebrate the retirement of the soldier that had been 20 years in the making.

That's when the UTV we use for yardwork on our property broke (it apparently believed its only purpose was for Covid viral video making), the grocery order I had entered online to feed 18 family members Thanksgiving dinner disappeared, and when I added it again and paid for it, I was locked out of our bank account and stranded at a gas station, because my phone had literally broken that morning (as in two cell phone stores and Apple could not fix the thing) and I didn't have it to call our bank and get my card turned back on.

The same day, the Keurig went out (listen, we joke about many things in this house, but coffee is not one of them), a payment we were expecting to help cover the retirement party expenses was delayed, bats moved back into the apex of our home, our 40-person, Covid-accommodating outdoor tent completely crumbled (we should have believed the reviews on Amazon), the first November hurricane in ions in our state appeared on the map and the weather forecast turned from sun to 100 percent chance of thunderstorms for the two days of our planned-months-in-advance outdoor, Covid-friendly retirement events.

By the time a mouse scurried by the floor of my 4 a.m. devotional the day of Super-Spouse's retirement ceremony, Super-Spouse and I were really just laughing. Because when you've spent an entire lifetime on different continents facing things like hospital floors and floods and infestations on your own, managing (let's be honest) our materialistic, first-world woes together under one roof actually felt like a privilege, like some kind of warped team-building activity we got to conquer together in light of military life.

But while we were laughing, some incredible prayer warrior women were praying, and one of my dearest friends asked if our group of co-op mamas could all stop and, in the midst of crazy, hold a friends Facetime communion.