In the middle of March I transferred to a new location in my company so that I could get my daughter back to a rural environment. In November of last
year we found that this huge old homestead was for sale in my hometown and we set our mind to trying to get it. I moved into it middle of March.
The house is one of the historical homes of the town (one of the first large homes built). It was built ca 1905. It sets on about 5/8 of an acre
with HUGE post oaks, ponderosa pines, and hackberries. My husband and I have been working our cabooses off on the property because the last couple to
live in the home bought it in the 1960's and then basically didn't take care of it. 40 years of yopan hollies does a forest make. And so we have
been dedicating every weekend to what we call yardwork, but others would call deforestation efforts.
Until 2 weeks ago when we knocked out all of the old brick skirt on the west side of the house to have the leveller come in next week and jack up and
shim on top of the piers. The house has excellent inner foundational support (three bridge beams running from front to back of the house �V each 8"
thick and over 20" wide), but the exterior side walls are spanner beams in between hand-hewn rock piers and the piers have settled a bit giving the
house a slight frowny face. So we're going to level her up best we can before we get on with painting and everything else.
Anyway, my point is that knocking out the skirting is the first work we have done on the HOUSE.
This house is one of the most comfortable "at home" feeling houses I have ever been in. No bad feelings in it. Just home. And my husband feels
the same way (and apparently my kiddos as well). When the lights are off in the house it is REAL stinking dark inside, but it doesn't bother me at
all to walk around in it with no lights on. What I'm trying to convey is, there is no ill feeling here.
There have been a few little odd things that have happened around the house since we moved in, but, if you contort yourself just right you can explain
them away and make yourself feel silly for even talking about them.
Until last Sunday.
We always get my little 2 year old grandson on Sundays.
Last Sunday evening my son, daughter, grandson and I are in the living room. The front living room of the house is very large and runs all the way
across the house. So we have our living area on the east end of it, and have basically left the west end empty for now. We will eventually turn it
into a library and reading room. There is a door on the west wall of the house that leads out to the portege. If you look down on the room from
above you would see basically an L created by the couch and love seat. When you are sitting on the love seat your back is to this door (you're
facing east). So, since my son and I are sitting on the love seat, we have the west door behind us, and my daughter who is sitting on the couch, is
facing north, and therefore can look at the door very easily.
My grandson was standing in the middle of the living room about halfway between us and the tv...being a little kid. When all of a sudden he looks
over me and my son's heads at the west door. He smiles and waves...at something... and then immediately the sweet little smile vanishes and he busts
out crying and starts rubbing his eyes like they're burning! It took over 5 minutes before we could get him to stop crying.
All three of us saw this happen. My daughter immediately goes "Oh my gosh, that��s the freakiest thing I've ever seen." And she just keeps
looking from him to the west door and back trying to grasp that she can't see what he obviously did. I, of course, also looked at the door just as
soon as he waved, and didn't see what he was waving at.
My son, tries to poo-poo it off. I try to not make a big deal of it, but can't deny what I saw. My daughter kind of wigged for a minute.
Okay, let's move to yesterday. My husband and I decided we would take both kids and the grandson out for lunch. So we go to a local mexican
restaurant. The restaurant didn't have a smoking section, so my husband excuses himself after a while and heads out to smoke. Just as soon as he is
out of sight, my son, who is sitting across the table from me says, in a dead serious tone and with a very servere look on his face, "So, do you want
to tell me what was going on?" And I mean this kid is intent.
"What are you talking about?" I'm clueless.
Eyebrow raising slightly and "The other night, mom, when you were crying."
"Uhhh, Bud, I haven't been crying, on any given night. When was this supposed to have happened."
"Friday night. I am not going to play these guessing games with you." (Geez this is my kid talking to me!) "Me and Joe both heard you
crying."
"Bud, no you didn't."
Well, before yesterday was over it took a sit down meeting with my son, his best friend, Joe, and my daughter. Here's how Friday night went:
My son and his friend were in the living room playing the Game Cube on the TV. My husband and I were up for a little while in the computer room and
my son had come up briefly to check on something he had running on his computer just minutes before my husband and I went to bed.
Apparently shortly after we got tucked in, BOTH boys heard me start crying. Not sobbing. BAWLING. I am hysterically crying. It is "bad enough"
that they pause the game, mute the TV and sit there listening, whipering to each other "What's going on? Are they fighting or something?" They
sit in silence and listen. They do not hear anything physical, just me crying, so they continue to listen. They hear me cry for SEVERAL minutes, and
then I say "You should have told me before!" (It is important to note that they were hearing MY voice.) And then they hear me just take off crying
again for several more minutes. At this point they are whispering "It sounds like they're just having an argument so we better stay out of it."
I'm sure this was pretty upsetting to both of them seeing as my husband and I don't usually have words, let alone full blown arguments. And
apparently it was upsetting enough that they came to an agreement that my son would confront me with it, and then report back to his friend.
It took a LOT of talking to these two kids to make them believe that I was NOT crying Friday night. That I did NOT say "You should have told me
before!". And that what they heard was NOT me, nor did I hear it, nor did my husband hear it, nor did my daughter hear it. Two big ol' boys all of
a sudden were white as sheets. "Damn, my son's friend says. That��s pretty *****ing freaky!"
My son's friend explained that he was sitting on the couch at the time they were listening to "me" cry. That puts his back to a wall that has the
staircase to the second floor on the other side. He stated that it sounded like I was standing on the stairs right behind that wall.
I asked everybody, including my daughter, if anybody has had any bad feelings in the house since we moved in. To a person, every one agrees that
there is no ill feeling in the house. I then told them that if they ever hear anything like this again they are to immediately come and get me.
So what do you think? Do you think that the work we have started on the house has disturbed something/someone?
For some reason, when i cut and paste this in a lot of the punctuation went weird...so I have come back in and cleaned it up.
[Edited on 28-7-2003 by Valhall]
[Edited on 27-10-2003 by Valhall]