Winchester Mystery House + Exciting News!

A few months ago, we played tourist in our own town, San Jose, California. I grew up driving to the Bay Area to visit family and I would always see billboards for the Winchester Mystery House: “Beautiful yet Bizarre.”

The story goes — Mrs. Winchester, whose husband invented the Winchester rifle, was very interested in séances and the spirit world. The spirits told her to avoid being haunted by those who were killed by her husband’s weapons, she needed to have noise constantly in her home to scare them away. She took this literally and seriously, and therefore her home was never completely finished being built. There was always the noise of construction happening in her home: the result– a bunch of staircases that lead to nowhere, doorways on the second floor that open out into the air, random rooms and chambers between other rooms.

In full daylight, when we visited, the house wasn’t very spooky, more like a grandmother’s mansion but with lots of stairs and tiny hallways. However, I could see it being a little creepy at night. They do haunted mansion events during the Halloween season that are probably terrifying. But when we went, it was prom season and a bunch of local high schoolers were getting their photos done in front of the house.

Mostly, the Winchester Mystery House is a giant beautiful Victorian mansion with beautiful conservatory garden rooms between bedrooms, lots of balconies, and lovely stained glass windows.

The tour guide also told us that Mrs. Winchester was obsessed with the number 13 and that she altered things like chandeliers, paintings, and stained glass windows to exhibit that number. She also had a séance room that she used every night at midnight.

Overall I thought it was a great experience! Especially since we live so closely, I felt we had to go and see what it was all about and I’m glad we did!

Exciting News

So now onto my exciting news.

We’ve moved to New York City!!

With Jonathan’s completed Ph.D., we had always discussed this year being the opportunity for us to go out and live somewhere new. I was born in California, went to college there, and have lived there my whole life. Jonathan’s family moved to California from Colorado when he was 3. Both of our families and extended families live here. So we really have no reason to live anywhere else.

…except for the adventure of it!

So here we are, me having finished up at my job of 3 years at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, him taking a remote-friendly role. We drove out to New York (where we have 1 total friend: hi Heather!) and we’ve been here for a week.

This kind of move actually goes against my nature. I’m an Enneagram 6, the Loyalist, and I crave security and stability. I’ve probably gained about 5 lbs this last month stressing about this.

But I always reassure myself that this is maybe the only time to do this. We are young, our families are in good health, we have savings, we both have jobs, and we don’t have a mortgage or kids.

We master-minded the logistics of our move, using Amtrak Express shipping — which worked AMAZINGLY well, might I add — plotting all dog-friendly hotels on our route on a Google map, and sped out here over 5 days of driving. I’ll probably do a post about the logistics of the trip, since it was hard to find the exact info I was looking for on the internet.

We’re in a temporary apartment in Long Island City, Queens — but just recently signed a lease on a place on the Upper West Side!

This is a terrifying but thrilling time!