And Now You Know For Sure: I'm Crazy.

Before I begin this post, you'll need to know a couple things:

1) The property that we just moved onto is owned by a very rich (and somewhat famous) doctor whom I will refer to as 'Doc' from now on. Close friends and family know the identity of our amazing landlord, but in order to protect his privacy, I will not publicly disclose his actual name.

2) I believe in a lot of crazy things. This post will address my belief in ghosts and the like. Beware! :)

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When we finally got the official news that Doc had decided to rent to us, despite us feeling like there was just no freakin' way that we'd actually landed such an amazing deal, we started telling people. Everyone was happy, especially us, considering that our new home was literally one mile from the only other home we'd ever known as a family. It's even on the same road! It'd be an easy move and we're able to stay in my hometown that I love so much.

When we told my Grandma, who has lived in this town for well over 30 years and knows everyone and their dog, she said, "Oh, you're moving into the old Phillips' house?"

"Uh...no? We're moving into [insert Doc's surname]'s old house.."

"Yeah, and he bought it from the Phillips' a long time ago.", replied my Grandma.

"Oh, you know them?"

"I knew them - they've passed on."

Wait, WHAT?!

This is the part where my dramatic personality comes into play and at that very moment I decided in my mind that the place was freakin' haunted. No ifs, ands, or buts. Someone that used to live there died? Yep. Haunted! It's a no brainer.

We moved in without a hitch. "Well, it doesn't feel haunted...", I told myself the first night we stayed. And, lo and behold, with the exception of a few noises that I passed off as 'old house creaks', we made it a whole week living there without our bed being elevated or dishes flying everywhere like I originally feared when I decided the place was haunted.

But, it didn't take long before things started happening...
My parents came over the Sunday after we moved in. Raymond & my Dad had left to go do something at my Grandma's, so it was just my Mom, me, and the kids. We were in the main living room when we heard a loud knocking on the front door. I got up to open the door, thinking it must be the guys. Before I could make it to the other side of the house, they knocked again, so I hollered out, "I'm coming, hold on!" When I made it to the door and opened it, there was no one in sight. I went back over to the other side of the house and my mom asked where the guys were. "It wasn't them.", I told her, "No one was there."

My Mom thought the guys were trying to mess with us, so she called my Dad and to our surprise, they were still at my Grandma's house, more than a mile up the road. Now, if we lived anywhere else, I'd think someone had, like, ding-dong ditched us or something. But, for one, we live way out in the boonies. Two, there's a coded gate to get on the property. Three, we're in the dead center of a 450 acre ranch - there's our home, the Doc's mansion, and three cabins (that are about a 1/2 mile away from our home and vacant at that time) that he rents out to people that want to enjoy the amenities of the ranch. Not exactly the prime spot for a ding-dong ditcher.

So, conclusion? GHOST.

Just last weekend, my parents, grandparents and one of my cousins came over to go fishing. Later that evening, my parents left. The kids were getting fussy, so my Nana, my cousin, and I decided to head back to our house and leave Raymond and my Papa to fish.

Our front living area is one giant room - the living room is right beside the dining room, which opens up into the kitchen. We were in the living room and I had just finished telling my Nana about the weird noises we hear. A few minutes passed and I walked into our kitchen, leaving my cousin, my Nana, and the kids in the living room, when all of a sudden there was a loud crash - we all looked up, startled, and saw that one of the chairs at the dining table had completely fallen over. It's a good, solid wood dining set. Nothing around it, no one beside it and it just fell over.

Conclusion? A GHOST!!!

The latest 'ghost story' happened just this past Wednesday. This is the first incident that my husband has witnessed and he's the biggest skeptic, thinks anything like this is a crock.

The door that leads into a second living room that we have turned into a playroom does not close all the way. We've tried to push down on the door handle as we close it, thinking that would do the trick, but the house settling has made it impossible to close all the way.

Raymond and the kids were outside playing and I was in our bedroom getting dressed. I had just peaked out the window to see what they were up to, before going about trying to find a pair of undies in the enormous piles of clean clothes that I had yet to fold and put away. Elbows deep in clothes, I practically jumped out of my skin when I heard a door slam very loudly. "QUIT SLAMMING THE DAMN DOOR!", I yelled out, sure that it was one of the kids. Moments later, I heard Raymond banging on the playroom door, hollering, saying he couldn't open it. I grabbed a nightgown, slipped it on, (still hadn't found undies!) and walked out to the playroom door. It was shut. Completely shut. I turned the knob, pushed but it didn't budge.

 "Why in the hell would you close it?!", Raymond shouted through the door. WTF? I didn't close it! Finally, after a couple minutes of banging on the top of the door to get it un-wedged from the uneven door frame, we got it open.

"Marissa, why in the hell did you slam the door that hard?"

"UH, I DIDN'T slam the door, Raymond. I was in our room! Are you sure it wasn't one of the kids?"

He said that all of the kids were outside with him when they all heard the door slam. He thought it was me. When we both realized that it was none of us, and knowing how hard it had to of been slammed to get it shut all the way, we both shuddered. We didn't even have to say the words to know what we were both thinking.

GHOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next day I decided to ask the overseer that has worked here for a while about it, expecting for him to laugh it off and call us crazy. All he said was, "I was waiting for y'all to say something, to be honest. My wife and I have witnessed some very odd things around the entire property since we started working here, the main place being that house."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Do you believe in ghosts? Have any stories? Tell me about it!



Xoxo,
Marissa