Not Exactly Simple

I must rewind a bit.  I found these pictures in my inbox from moving day and they tell a story worth writing down.

On Friday, October 4th, I drove our new van loaded with lots and lots of junk to Minneapolis.  Once I arrived at our rental, I unloaded the van, took pictures and cleaned until Joe finished at work.  When he finished at work, he drove to the house, we loaded into his car, leaving the van behind, and headed back to his parents' house.

After we arrived at the Pull house, we waited up for my friends, Erin and Ryan (minus their kids), to arrive.  They were driving up from Lincoln to help us move and unpack.  Due to a late start on their end, they got in around 3AM.  We had gone to bed a few hours before and simply got up, opened the door for them, showed them their bed and went back to sleep.

When we woke in the morning, we sent the guys out the door to fetch the moving trucks in Fargo and load them from the storage unit.  Once the storage unit was empty, they would head back to the farm, load our remaining items and then head on to Minneapolis.  While they were loading in Fargo, Erin and I loaded up their car with other stuff and drove to Minneapolis.  We stopped on the way in Fergus Falls, MN, to pick up our old van from the couple we had purchased our new van from and drove on to Minneapolis.

We arrived in Minneapolis at our rental home in the mid afternoon.  As we exited our cars, I suddenly realized I didn't have the keys to our home.  We had left many things for Joe and Ryan to load on the moving trucks, including our clothes from the night before, where I was SURE I had left my key to the house.  Erin encouraged me to check everything I had with me.  I looked through a few things, but I had this very strong memory of putting that key in my back pocket, so I gave up the search very quickly.

My next idea was to call the landlord.  We could drive to his home and pick up his spare.  The first time I called, he didn't answer.  The next time I called, he answered.  He was forty-five minutes north of the city.  He also didn't have the keys on him.  

After checking that solution off the list, my next idea was to call Joe and Ryan.  Surely they weren't too far away, right?  Wrong.  It would be at least four hours before they arrived.  Four precious hours of unpacking and cleaning.  What were we going to do?

Just as we were figuring these things out (or rather not figuring them out), my good friend, Christa, who lives here in The Cities, showed up to help with cleaning and unpacking.  The best we could come up with was to break into the house.  It turns out, this wasn't an easy task, which I am grateful for, except when I need to break into the house.  After checking every screen and window, we did finally find one we could break into.

Even with the stepstool, however, we were too short to get in there.  

So, after much deliberation, we decided it would be best to shove poor Erin through the window.

She's always been the brave one.  

After about an hour of scheming, window prying, and shoving my dear, lifelong friend through the tall window, all the while hoping no one would call the police on the three ladies trying to break into the empty house next door...we met with success!

I haven't mentioned to at least one of them that I later found the missing key in the bottom of my purse.  The purse that was sitting in the backseat of Erin's car.  

Oh, Trisha.

 Oh if I'd only listened to Erin about checking through everything we had with us.

If only.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my husband the evening before as we were climbing in the car to drive back to North Dakota.  I was boasting in some way about how good or exciting or amazing (I can't remember the actual words) Joe's life was because he married me, even if it was sometimes complicated.  I can be extremely humble sometimes, I know. 

He stopped, looked me squarely in the face and said, "Life with you is a lot of things, but is never, ever simple, Trisha."  

Never were truer words spoken.