Housework

Last week, I had a little helper while I was doing housework, and I'm not talking about one of my four boys.  The Hubs and I were home alone, and I was inside cleaning while he was outside doing yard work.

While cleaning in the living room, I found one of the throw pillows from the couch on the floor behind the couch.  I picked it up, fluffed it, put it back in its spot, and then turned around to close a window because it was getting cold out.  (Yes, in July.)  When I turned back around, the pillow was back on the floor.  I stood there staring at it for a few seconds, thinking I was crazy.  Then I picked it up and put it back on the couch.

A little while later, I put some towels away in the closet outside the bathroom.  The closet door is a sliding door, and I remember having to fight with it to get it closed, because the towels were in the way of the track.  But I got it closed, and went into the bathroom to put the washcloths away.  When I came back out, the closet door was wide open again.  (Being that it's a sliding door, it can't open itself.)  I took a deep breath, rubbed out the goosebumps, and moved along.

That night, I was in the bathroom doing my nightly face washing/teeth brushing routine while listening to the sound of my husband doing the dishes in the kitchen.  (The bathroom and kitchen share a wall.)  I heard him turning the sink on and off, washing the dishes, and opening and closing cupboards to put them away.  When I was done in the bathroom, I went out into the kitchen to see if I could help him.  The light in the kitchen was off, the sink was full of dirty dishes, and my husband was nowhere to be seen.  I found him in bed, fast asleep.  (Dear Ghosty Friends: If you're going to do the dishes, could you please start doing the actual dishes instead of your parallel dimension ones?)

Yesterday, our house helper was in a different kind of mood.  The Hubs walked into the bathroom to find half of the shower curtain ripped off the hooks.  He then went into our bedroom and found our change jar, which sits at the back of a built-in book shelf (so, literally no way for it to get bumped or knocked off the shelf, it essentially sits inside a wall) on the floor, the change spilled all over the place.

It's just still so funny to me, how we can go a couple weeks without anything significant happening, and then we seem to have an outbreak of activity, where crazy things happen almost daily.  I wonder why that is....

The Conjuring Comparison

So.  I did it.  I went and saw The Conjuring.  And while it was probably the scariest movie I've seen in the history of forever, it did not remind me of my house.  Well.  Not too much. 

Without giving away too much to those who haven't seen the movie, I'll just say this: if anything even as remotely awful as what happened in that house on their first night ever happened in our house, we'd be gone without another thought.  Like for real.  Lucky for us, most of the similarities between the Perron family's ghost story and ours are on the surface, right down to the green front door.

In the movie, the Perron family moved out to the country, into an old white farmhouse with green trim, with their five girls.




Haunted movie farmhouse on the left, our real farmhouse on the right.


In real life, the C family moved out to the country (but not too far, we're still less than two minutes from civilization), into an old white farmhouse with green trim, with our four boys.




Haunted movie family on the left, haunted C Family on the right.


Their house had a huge yard and a bunch of creepy, old trees.  Our house has a huge yard and a bunch of creepy, old trees.  They had a pond at the edge of their yard.  We have a marsh at the end of ours.




Haunted movie yard on the left, our real haunted yard on the right.


They had a creepy basement/cellar full of lots of weird stuff.  We have a creepy basement/cellar with an incinerator and a weird, arched door that leads to nowhere.  Their basement is haunted.  Our basement is haunted.  They had a little boy ghost, "Rory."  We have a little boy ghost, "Bobby."

Creepy movie basement on the left, creepy C Fam basement on the right.

Oh, and did I tell you?  The Conjuring is based on a TRUE STORY.  How true?  I've posted a couple of links to stories on that exact topic so that you don't have to go hunting for the info yourselves.

Here is an excellent breakdown of fact vs. fiction on all things related to The Conjuring: The Conjuring True Story.

Here is a letter that the eldest Perron girl, Andrea Perron, wrote to a website that posted a review on the movie.  In her letter, she says: "There are liberties taken and a few discrepancies but overall, it is what it claims to be — based on a true story, believe it or not."  Read the full letter HERE: Family Members Reveal The Conjuring True Story.

Now that the movie is #1 at the box office, USA Today decided to do a little digging into how true the story is.  Read their story here: USA Today- True Story Behind The Conjuring.

As an author, I was so excited to learn that one of the family members, Andrea Perron, wrote a series of books about her family's experience in their haunted farmhouse.  Upon getting home after the movie, I logged into my Amazon account ready to purchase at least the first of the three books.  But the reviews stopped me.  They are AWFUL.  The book is expensive (over $20 for a paperback and almost $10 for the Kindle version), long (528 pages), and I found myself struggling to even read all the way through the synopsis.  House of Darkness, House of Light is definitely not for me.  But here's the link if you want to check it out: House of Darkness, House of Light by Andrea Perron.  Just please, before you buy, read the reviews.

Bottom line: the movie is awesome and at least somewhat true.  But not necessarily an accurate depiction of what goes on in haunted houses.  And definitely nothing like what goes on in ours.

Conjuring Courage

I can’t remember what movie I went to the theater to see when I saw my first preview for The Conjuring, but I do remember turning to my husband with wide eyes and saying, “hellllllllll no.”  I did NOT want to see it.  Never, ever, never, ever, never. 

Why?  Well…..because we also live in a haunted old farmhouse.  We also have a creepy basement with a scary spirit, and a little boy ghost who roams the property.  We too have enlisted the help of paranormal investigators in our quest for answers.  They say art imitates life, and for us, this particular piece of art is just a little too lifelike. 

But then the reviews started coming in, and they were good.  Like really good.  Way back before I became a chicken shit when it comes to scary movies, I loved a good horror flick.  So I was intrigued. 

I did a little research into how “true” the true story that inspired The Conjuring is, and it turns out the tale has much more truth to it than other “true story” movies (I’m talking to YOU, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Strangers.)  I was even more intrigued.

  One of my friends went and saw it last night, and when I asked her if she though it was a bad idea for me to see, she said:

“Jenn, the only thing you don’t have in real life that was in that damn movie is a freaky ass doll.  I feel like you could just stay home!”

Ok.  Well now I’m super intrigued.  And I feel like there’s probably a 75% chance that I’m going to go see The Conjuring this weekend.  Which most likely means that I will never sleep well again.  *Clap, clap!*