Deleted Sections from the book Haunted Flint - Whaley House

Our History Press editor did not want too many first person accounts or ghost hunting details in the book so we have a couple buildings that we had to delete some info from their chapters.

The first I'll share is from the Whaley House.





Whaley House Hauntings

According to the paranormal team Motor City Ghost Hunters there are three claims reported by the staff.  One was during reconstruction of the home, and a tarp the builders were using levitated to the first floor.  One staff member reported hearing a bell ring when she was in one of the rooms.  Another member of the staff reported feelings of being watched in the basement.

In June of 2014 the paranormal team investigated these claims at the Whaley home. The claim of being watched was ruled out because of the high EMF readings in the basement. This can cause paranoia and give you the feeling of being watched.

When they investigated the parlor one of the investigators saw a shadow figure walking up and down the stairs. EVP sessions in the room confirmed that Mr. Morrey Andrews, Mary Whaley’s brother-in-law who died in the house. According to the team Mr. Andrews was unaware of his passing. During the second session in the parlor the team heard footsteps coming from the bedroom above. The team also believes they got a response from Robert Whaley in the second session.

Another room that they received confirmation of paranormal activity was the Whaley’s adopted daughter Florence’s bedroom. They believe that they got positive confirmation through a flashlight and EVP that it was Florence in the room with them. They asked her a series of questions about her belonging in the room and the museum staff confirmed that was her.

As the team was seated around the dining table they said a round of prayers by people of the Episcopal Church, which the family was a member of. The team received a lot of flashlight activity and many members of the team reported seeing a shadow figure walk numerous times back and forth in the study Mr. Whaley used.  The shadow figure is believed to a residual effect that may have been at the time the Whaley family would go to bed.

The team’s conclusion is that many of the Whaley family members still live in the house. Although they did find a lot of activity, they believe that the spirits living there are friendly and won’t harm anyone. 







Haunted Flint
Haunted America Series
Roxanne Rhoads and Joe Schipani 

Publisher: The History Press

Release Date: September 2, 2019

ISBN-10: 1467143049
ISBN-13: 978-1467143042

Book Description:

Sinister Secrets in Flint’s History

Home to ancient burial grounds, unsolved murders, economic depression, and a water crisis, Flint emits an unholy energy rife with ghostly encounters.

Colonel Thomas Stockton’s ever vigilant ghost keeps a watchful eye over his family home at Spring Grove, where guests occasionally hear the thump of his heavy boots.

Restless spirits long separated from their graves lurk among the ancient stones in Avondale Cemetery.

Carriage maker W.A. Paterson’s spirit continuously wanders the halls of the Dryden Building, and something sinister and unnamed resides in a Knob Hill mansion waiting to prey on impressionable young men.

Join authors Roxanne Rhoads and Joe Schipani on a chilling tour of Flint’s most haunted locations.

Amazon    BN    Chapters    Book Depository    Arcadia Press     Goodreads
  

Working with Faux Pumpkins #FauxPumpkins #Funkins




I have grown my own pumpkins for years. Every Halloween season the family has our annual pumpkin carving night. The guys get really competitive. I watch them have fun and usually carve something simple.



I hate putting too much effort into creating something amazing because it will just rot and turn into mush.

Then came the faux carvable pumpkin. What a creation!!! Now I can get really creative with pumpkins and not worrying about the rotting on my front porch. I can keep them and use them to decorate every year!!!

Since this amazing discovery I have tried out a wide variety of faux pumpkins on the market.

There are many types of artificial pumpkins. Some claim to be carvable, these are usually listed as carvable craft pumpkins.

They range from super cheap like $1.00 ones at Dollar Tree to mid-range ones at Michael’s and JoAnn’s to the most expensive, and in my opinion, the best ones on the market for carving-  Fun-kins.

Small Pumpkin from Amazon
I’ve tried just about all of them.

The mini pumpkins I purchased on Amazon were created to be used as is for decorating. They are foam inside with shiny plastic outer shell. Not suitable for carving at all but they work well enough for painting and adding fun things to the outside.


Dollar Tree Pumpkin

I was surprised that the foam pumpkins from Dollar Tree are hollow inside so you can technically carve them, though they are made up of foam balls so quite messy to cut and you won’t get even smooth cuts. If you want to paint them use acrylics because they do not have a plastic shell, just foam so many oil based paints could cause the foam to melt.

Small Ashland Pumpkin from Michaels

The Ashland craft pumpkins from Michaels are nice. They come in a variety of colors and sizes so if you can find black or white or another fun color you won’t have to paint them. You can use them for a variety of multi-media crafts or carving. Carving one of these isn't quite as easy as carving a Fun-kin but if you have the right tools you can do it.

JoAnn's Fun-Kin

JoAnn did carry a few varieties of Fun-Kins unique to the store. Great quality, great for carving.

Fun-kins from Funkins.com

By far the absolute best artificial pumpkins for carving are available on Funkins.com

Fun-kins look and feel like real pumpkins- they even carve like real pumpkins, without the squishy pumpkin guts inside. Fun-kins are available in multiple sizes. They have several white varieties and one black style.

Fun-kins can be carved with regular pumpkin carving tools, serrated blades or you can get crafty with power tools.


For pumpkin ideas and designs check out my book Pumpkins and Party Themes to be released in August 2020. 




Bring your Halloween party theme to life with these quick tips and tricks!

Pumpkins and Party Themes features ten unique party themes with five do-it-yourself pumpkin designs for each theme. The pumpkin projects have a variety of decorating ideas that include carving, painting, and mixed media craftiness and easy-to-follow steps on each creation. Author Roxanne Rhoads also includes quick ideas on how to bring the theme to life through décor, costumes, and activities. These fun party themes range from gothic elegance to Edgar Allan Poe, under the sea, let's get literary, and more!

With beautiful full-color images to illustrate the tools needed, steps to follow, and final products, this book makes for the perfect gift for Halloween enthusiasts and party hosts alike!


Pre-Order on Amazon

Working Hard on Pumpkins and Party Themes


Sorry I've been MIA. I've been working hard on my book. Deadline is February 1. I even rented an office at Stockton House so I could set up a photo studio to stage the party themes.

I'll be back soon with new posts, new DIYS, and all kinds of plans for 2020.



Bring your Halloween party theme to life with these quick tips and tricks!

Pumpkins and Party Themes features ten unique party themes with five do-it-yourself pumpkin designs for each theme. The pumpkin projects have a variety of decorating ideas that include carving, painting, and mixed media craftiness and easy-to-follow steps on each creation. Author Roxanne Rhoads also includes quick ideas on how to bring the theme to life through décor, costumes, and activities. These fun party themes range from gothic elegance to Edgar Allan Poe, under the sea, let's get literary, and more!

With beautiful full-color images to illustrate the tools needed, steps to follow, and final products, this book makes for the perfect gift for Halloween enthusiasts and party hosts alike!


Pre-Order on Amazon

Creating Vision Boards By Roxanne Rhoads


A wise man once told me, “Surround yourself with successful people, ditch the losers who aren’t going anywhere they’ll just drag you down with them.”

I think that’s one of the best pieces of advice I ever received because it was true.
Once I got rid of the toxic people in my life I started to be more successful.

But I had to do more than just surround myself with successful, positive people. I had to learn to think positively as well. Negativity brings everyone down and in hard times it can be difficult to see things in a positive light. But until you do, things will not change.

One of the ways I learned to focus my dreams and goals was through vision boards.

A vision board is a tool that uses the law of attraction to attain your goals.

The law of attraction means that “like attracts like”. If you focus on positive things, positive things will come to you. If you focus on the negative, then negative will come to you.

This sounds like a very new age thought but it’s been around a long time.

The New Thought philosophical movement developed in the United States in the 19th century, following the teachings of Phineas Quimby.

In 1887 Ralph Trine’s In Tune With The Infinite has this passage, “The law of attraction works universally on every plane of action, and we attract whatever we desire or expect. If we desire one thing and expect another, we become like houses divided against themselves, which are quickly brought to desolation. Determine resolutely to expect only what you desire, then you will attract only what you wish for.”

In The Master Key System published in 1912, Charles Haanel wrote “The law of attraction will certainly and unerringly bring to you the conditions, environment and experiences in life, corresponding with your habitual, characteristic, predominant mental attitude.”

Rhonda Byrne’s 2006 film and 2007 book, The Secret, put vision boards in the spotlight. She emphasized that you should not just think about what you want to obtain but also infuse the thought with the emotion associated with that wish. Combine thought and feeling to see the wish as reality. See your desire as though it was already real. This is what attracts the universe to make your vision manifest as reality.

You must use positivity to think, dream, desire and put those things out into the universe.

Thoughts are energy. Thoughts are things.

Study results published in Psychology Today found that “Mental imagery impacts many cognitive processes in the brain: motor control, attention, perception, planning, and memory. So the brain is getting trained for actual performance during visualization. It’s been found that mental practices can enhance motivation, increase confidence and self-efficacy, improve motor performance, prime your brain for success, and increase states of flow – all relevant to achieving your best life!”

Creating a vision board, or a manifestation board as they are often called, is a way to focus your energy and thoughts on the things you want. Take your desires and manifest them into reality.

A vision board is a representation is a concrete representation of your thoughts, desires, and goals.

Jack Canfield, the creator and bestselling author of The Chicken Soup for the Soul Series, believes in the power of visualization, “Creating a vision board is probably one of the most valuable visualization tools available to you.”

Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, said: “Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.”

We can manifest what we want with the power of our minds. Thoughts can create reality.

If we put our thoughts and desires out in the universe in a meaningful way, in a way that makes us and the universe believe – this can help bring those things into our lives.

Vision boards put our thoughts and desires on something real, something concrete- taking our mental thoughts and putting them on something tangible. This is a way of manifesting them as reality. You can look at something real every day to remind you of what you want.

Critics of vision boards say they don’t work because you can sit and dream about something all day long and it isn’t going to make it real.

I tend to agree. You still have to work for what you want. Like Henry David Thoreau said in Walden, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

To me, this means go ahead and dream big but work towards that goal. Figure out what you can do to make your dreams come true. Set goals. Create milestones.

You can work this into the creation of your vision board.

A manifestation board should be a collection of things you want to bring into your life. Choose things that you want that are reasonably achievable. If you are flat broke a mansion in Beverly Hills probably isn’t a realistic goal. However, a moderately larger house (or a house in general if you don’t already have one) can be achievable if you envision it realistically.

Be clear about your goals. New job, new body, a better relationship, nice car- be specific and envision exactly what you.

To create your own vision board start by creating a list of what you want- dreams, goals, wishes, desires - these can be items you desire like a new car, new house, places you want to go, achievements you want to reach, like a new job, a promotion, a book deal, etc.

I often create separate lists which will translate into individual boards for things. I have a physical/health board, a career board and I’m working on a vacation board and dream house board.

For example- on my career board I have images of a woman typing, an open book, a contract, money, more money and the images for bestseller statuses. So my manifestation board not only includes the end goal of what I want (money and being a bestseller) it also includes steps that will get me there.


For my body/weight loss board, I include body love mantras, images of my ideal weight/shape, and a focus on being healthy along with some dresses that are my end goal for a cosplay ball and a masquerade ball. By looking at this board I see where I want to get and know what I have to do to get there.

To me, this is the optimal way to plan and create a vision board. By focusing on not just what you want but how you’re going to get it.

Once you have your lists in place, start collecting images for your board(s). You can find images on the internet and print them out or cut out images from magazines.
I love to use images, words, and quotes.

Images give us a direct visual of what we wish to acquire. I love finding images that are a perfect fit for my vision boards. Photos of vacation spots, a fancy bed set I’d love to add to my bedroom, art to hang on my wall, the dress I want to fit into. Images are power, use them wisely.

Words are personal and can invoke feelings and experiences within us. As an author words hold much meaning for me so I choose carefully when adding them to my boards. I often use words that are written in bold colors and fancy fonts.

Quotes are one of my favorite things to put on a vision board. They can be from books, songs, movies, a favorite teacher, a grandma, or from history.

Most of us have a favorite quote that is filled with meaning for us. I have several that reach in and touch my soul. These are the ones I like to add to my boards, the ones filled with meaning that fit the situation and will motivate me towards a goal or invoke a sense of already being there.

You can also use self-affirmations. These are things you have written to self-sooth, to create a specific feeling within yourself. The best way to word self-affirmations that are in a positive light start with “I am…” I am worthy. I am brilliant. I am successful.

Other items you can add to your board are poems, postcards, souvenirs from places you have been and would like to go again, lists, stickers, bookmarks, feathers, beads, wine corks, anything that represents the things you want and the feeling of having them.

Above I have pictured digital vision boards I created with Pixlr’s collage feature. These are images I created for this article. My real boards are large physical creations.

It is very important that your vision boards are real tangible things you can feel and touch- and look at every day.

Cork boards are great for short term wants. You can switch them out with new desires and needs quite easily, just take that image down and pin up a new one.

You can create a vision board with a simple poster board from the dollar store and whatever craft supplies you have on hand.

Or you can create an elaborately framed board that looks like a work of art.

The most important thing about a vision board is what you do with it after you make it. Put it where you can see it every day- several times a day. Every time you look at it let it invoke feelings in you. Imagine how you will feel when you reach these goals when you have achieved or received the things on your board. Imagine yourself there- see yourself on that vacation in Hawaii, see yourself getting the promotion at work, see yourself signing the contract on that book deal. Feel it, experience it, make it real.

The power of intention is truly remarkable. Feel the universe sending your desires to you. Manifest the things you desire most.

Use your vision board as a daily reminder to feel your dreams and work towards your goals.

If you achieve a goal, remove it from your board and put up something new. Celebrate every milestone, be grateful for what you have and the things you acquire. I also recommend creating a new board every 6-12 months.

And remember positivity and the law of attraction are always in play.

By seeing yourself as successful and living a life of abundance more success and abundance will come your way.