postcard from the Winchester Mystery House

Hello from the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California!

During the pandemic, it was closed down, only open in a virtual option on their website that you can buy. Now they’re back open for business every day. The Winchester Mystery House has 160 rooms altogether, 40 of them are bedrooms. Visitors will discover some 2,000 doors and 40 staircases throughout the house, three elevators, and ONE shower. The Winchester mystery house holds the Guinness world record for the longest continual construction. 

What is interesting about this house is that Sarah Winchester held seances where she saw where people were killed by Winchester rifles, when she would do these seances she shoudl see where the people were killed and build rooms where they died so they could be at peace. Sarah spent 38 years building and tearing down rooms over and over again to make new rooms. Each room was nailed shut with 13 nails because she wanted to to keep the spirits sealed in and to protect her family. 

Over the years they added staircases that went to nowhere and a window that never sees sunlight. This place is a fun trip because they have a really good backstory about how Sarah Winchester built her house and what is still there today, even though she has been dead for almost 100 years. 

After Sarah Winchester died they put her house up for auction in February 1923, five months after her death. The house was sold for $123,000 to a wealthy investor on June 30, 1923. 

The house was opened to the public as a tourist attraction when there was the first tour with Mayme Brown, who is the leaser of the house and the family’s estate. As of 2019, the Winchester Mystery House is one of the four most haunted houses in America, according to USAToday.  

What other tourists say about the Winchester Mystery House is that it is a great experience for all of the family and that the self-guided tour is incredible. According to Travelwaits.com, it is incredible because of all the rooms that are in the house, 160 rooms altogether. 

Some say that due to covid there weren't a lot of places that you can see but it was still a great experience because you could see a lot of the house including the staircase that leads to nowhere. 

In addition to the house, the property includes a cemetery and a garden. The reason why Sarah started building the house more was that she lost her daughter from marasmus and her husband to tuberculosis. 

Through the years of building Sarah Winchester got arthritis so bad to the point she couldn't walk up stairs anymore. From then she made a staircase that she could walk up the stairs where the stairs were smaller inclines so she could get up the stairs without hurting herself   

After 38 years of the constant building of her house, she stopped building, and within 24 hours she passed away from heart failure. 

If you like haunted houses and creepy things, then this is the place for you because there are all of those in this one house. 

At a Glance

Address: 525 S Winchester Blvd., San Jose, CA 95128

Business hours: Monday through Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Phone number: (408)-247-2000

Website: www.winchestermysteryhouse.com

when i moved out during the pandemic

The start of 2020 was hard for me because of the pandemic, finding a new job, and in June I moved out for the first time away from my parents. 

While packing up my Honda Civic with all of my belongings, I felt like something was eating at me. While putting my standing jewelry box into my car, I figured out what that feeling was -- it was sadness. 

When I loaded the last of my belongings into my car and hugged my parents goodbye, I walked back to my car and drove off. While driving, a song came on from my playlist named “I’m Already There” from Lonestar, and that’s when I burst into tears.  

While driving the backroads from Tangent to Corvallis, I cried the whole time. I felt homesick even though I could turn around and go back with my parents. But it was time for me to start a new life where I was paying my own bills, fending for myself like the adult I was becoming and that I know I was going to be. 

When I got to my new home I sat down on my new California king-size bed and held my guinea pig Phantom close to my chest and just cuddled him. His squeaking noises started to soothe me and eventually I stopped crying and continued to cuddle him till my boyfriend came home. I felt homesick for the next couple of weeks after moving in just because this was all new to me and none of it felt real. 

For those couple of weeks, I kept having dreams about me being 6 years old sitting on the floor playing with my Barbie dolls, and my parents watching over me and protecting me from anything that could hurt me. 

Now being in this house for almost a year I have learned a lot from being an adult -- like paying bills sucks, along with once you are on your own things change a lot. But it’s going to be okay because this is what people do with their lives. They live under their parents’ roof with their protection, to being on their own with no protection and having to budget all of your money into things you need to pay and buy. Sometimes you need to work your ass off to make ends meet because something could happen that you weren’t expecting at all. 

 

Now I see my parents about two times a week and spend time with them and help them with anything they need, including shopping and taking them wherever they need to go, such as taking them to trails so they can go walking, doctor appointments, and to work when the other one is sick. 

I have made a lot of sacrifices during this time of living on my own and during the pandemic, including not buying online so much and leaving my job to protect my family from COVID-19.

review of the Irregulars

The Netflix original series “The Irregulars” is a horror-like supernatural setting that is based on the Sherlock Holmes books. This series came out on March 26. It is about a group of teenagers that live in London, England during the 1800s who have recurring nightmares about supernatural beings that they believe are in London with them. 

While living their own lives there is this man who watches over the kids in Apartment 221B, Sherlock Holmes’ apartment. The group of teenagers struggled to make ends meet to make sure they don’t live on the streets. The main kids that in this show are Jessie( Darcie Shaw), Billy(Jojo Macari), Bea( Thaddea Graham) , Spike(McKell David), Leopold(Harrison Osterfield), Doctor Watson(Royce Pierreson), and Sherlock Holmes(Henry Lloyd-Hughes). 

Among the challenges for the teens: Jessie gets nightmares where she sees a doctor from the black plague and believes is going to kill her; and Bea is looking at her mother’s gravestone when Holmes’ collaborator Dr. Watson appears to enlist her help and is willing to pay for the task. Watson wants Bea to find four babies that have disappeared over the past couple of days.

If you don’t mind a little bit of gore and like mystery films this is a good show for that. Twists and turns abound throughout the series, whether about what is happening in London or where the missing babies went. Then for good measure, the creators have included a lot of romance between Bea and Leopold. 

While watching this series for the first time everything was very out there, where each of the main characters had seen a different part of what is happening in London around the time setting. The main kids have attitudes from being on the streets most of their life. 

the plotline was very predictable where I could see what was going to happen next before it even happened. With the characters,you could see what life was giving them and the pain they went through with the events that were in their lives being teenagers living in an abandoned house and pretty much living off the streets. The character’s backstories were pretty genuine about everything. 

The executive producer of the show Tom Bidwell said, “It’s quite a unique show with many genres; it’s adventure, it’s horror, it’s crime, it’s romance, it’s fantasy, it’s a mystery.” 

But Brian Tallerico, a blog writer, had a different experience with the show he said, “the direction here too often feels flat and shapeless, bouncing around a costume drama in which they don’t always look comfortable or genuine.”

This series has a lot of chilling things that happen from beginning to end, it will put you on the edge of your seat to find out what happens next. “The Irregulars” will leave you wanting more over and over again through each episode.

The actors were divided between who liked the series and who didn’t. The actors who played Bea( Thaddea Graham), Jessie( Darci Shaw) and Leopold (Harrison Osterfield)were very intrigued by the backstory and were in the zone and wanted to keep filming. the rest of the class didn’t really like what was going on with the storyline and how it was all about Bea and Jessie for the most part,they got a lot of the screen time instead of the rest of the group. 

At a Glance:

The Irregulars 

Starring: Harrison Osterfield (Leopold), Thaddea Graham (Bea), Darci Shaw ( Jessie), Jojo Marari (Billy), McKell David (spike), Royce Pierreson ( Doctor Watson), Henry Lloyd-Hughes ( Sherlock Holmes)

Summary: spin-off of the Sherlock Holmes books

Rated: TV-14

Showing at: Netflix

Distributor: Netflix 

Rating: ***

Genre: mystery, fantasy, romance, crime, horror adventure

Release date: March 26, 2021

Reviews from other people and the actors

https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/netflixs-the-irregulars-succumbs-to-some-pretty-regular-problems

https://collider.com/the-irregulars-finale-ending-explained-netflix/