Introducing Five Boxes Etsy Store!

Nick and Sheila are happy to announce our new online store where we will sell the stuff we want to get rid of!

Check it out!

www.fiveboxes.etsy.com

Please note that I have just set this shop up, so at the moment there is only one item listed.

I chose James Joyce's Ulysses as our first vintage book.

By visiting our store you will be supporting the Five Boxes mission...to clean out our lives!

We will be offering our stuff at good prices.

Be sure to tell your friends about our sites!

The Books

Religious Books:

The Turin Shroud is Genuine, Hoare, Rodney, 1994.
Living Flame of Love, St. John of the Cross, 1962.
The Passion of Fulton Sheen, Rev. Noonan, 1972.
This Tremendous Lover, Boylan, Eugene M., 1966.
The Essential Erasmus, Dolan, John P., 1964.
The Teacher, The Mind, Aquinas, Thomas, 1965.
Why Am I Afraid to Love?, Powell, John, 1982.
Agenda for the Third Millennium, Pope John Paul II, 1996
The Vatican II Weekday Missal, 1975
Classic Catholic Converts, Connor, Fr. Charles P., 2001
The Sacrament of Penance, Tobin, Rev. Eamon, 1983
New… St. Joseph Sunday Missal, 1976
Liturgical Question Box, Elliott, Peter J., 1998
As I Lay Dying, Neuhaus, Richard John, 2002
My Daily Bread, 1954
The Church Emerging from Vatican II, Doyle, Dennis M., 2000
The Size of Chesterton’s Chatholicism, Fagerberg, David W., 1998
Padre Pio, the Stigmatist, Carty, Rev. Charles Mortimer, 1973 – Sheila kept this
Padre Pio, His Life and Mission, Ingoldsby, 1978 – Sheila kept this
The Catholic Church through the Ages, Harney, Martin P., 1974 – Sheila kept this
What Went Wrong with Vatican II, McInerny, Ralph M., 1998
Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours, 1976
The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Royal, Robert, 2000 – Signed by the Author
The Meaning of Vocation, John Paul II, 1999
The Following of Christ, Kempis, Thomas A., 1952 – Sheila kept this
Life of Christ, Sheen, Fulton J., 1977 – Inscription “Mary Ethel gave me this book, June 23, 1992, Margaret M. Bowe”
The New American Bible, 1971
Mercy My Mission, Michalenko, Sister Sophia, 1995
The Apparitions at Medjugorje Prolonged, Laurentin, Rene, 1987
The New American Bible, Saint Joseph Edition, 1970
Born Catholics, Sheed, F.J., 1954
Mother Angelica, her life story, O’Neill, 1992
A Short History of the Catholic Church, Holmes, J. Derek & Bickers, Bernard W., 1984
Saint Patrick and the Irish, Cushing, Richard Cardinal, 1979
Moods and Truths, Sheen Fulton J., 1950

Misc. Books:

History of the Confederate States Navy, Scharf, J. Thomas, 1996
Directory of Specialized American Bookdealers 1984-1985, 1984
The Joys of Fishing, Gowen, Emmett, 1961
The Longing for Home, Buechner, Frederick, 1996 – Sheila kept this
A Room Called Remember, Buechner, Frederick, 1984 – Sheila kept this
Dr. Atkins’ Health Revolution, Atkins, Robert C., 1988
Caner Has Its Privileges, Clifford, Christine, 2002
The Essays of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, 1952
Victorian Illustrated Books, Muir, Percy, 1971
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, 1998
The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain, 1990
Caught Me a Big ‘Un… and then I let him go!, Houston, Jimmy, 1996
Ulysses, Joyce, James, 1961

Antique Books:

Pre-1929

The Works of Alexander Pope, 1808, Volumes 8, 9 & 10
The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, in Six Volumes, 1809, Volumes 1, 3, 4, & 5
The Spectator, in Ten Volumes, 1810, Volumes 4 & 5
The Works of Reverend Johnathan Swift, in Twenty Four Volumes, 1813, Volumes, 8, 9, 13, 19, 23, 24
The Literary World, Volume 12 (1881), 13 (1882) & 15 (1884) – Newspaper/Magazine published every 2 weeks, about new books that were published in the last two weeks and reviews
Glories of Mary, Liguori, St. Alphonsus, 1888
Milton’s Paradise Lost, Books I & II & Lycidas, Sprague, Homer B., 1896
Quiet Talks on Prayer, Gordon, S.D., 1904
Passionist Mission-Book, 1912
Revival Incidents, Carradine, Beverly, 1913
Rule of Conduct, 1917
The Vest Pocket Lawyer, 1923

1930-1949

Jamaica Inn, Maurier, Daphne du, 1937
Let’s Start Over Again, Young, Vash, 1933
Power through Repose, Call, Annie Payson, 1937
Soils and Men, Yearbook of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, 1938 – Nick wants this one
The Pater Noster of St. Teresa, 1942
Following of Christ, Kempis, Thomas A., 1948
The Second Spring, Newman, Cardinal, 1931
My Daily Reading from the Four Gospels, Father Stedman, 1941
In His Name, 1941
New Testament, 1941

Week 3 Begins

Good morning, week 3.

“I have to clean the house just to get to the stuff we’re sorting,” Nick says.

We’re still working on the dining room full of books.

Here are a few of the interesting things we found...

Some kind of guidebook, Beatificazione, 2003 – Mom’s last trip to Italy, two tickets and a receipt inside.

Fairfield Country Catholic, May 2005, Volume 22, No. 5, 2 copies, Farwell to John Paul II. (JUNK!)

A Western Union Telegram, September 14, for Sheila’s great grandparent’s wedding anniversary, from “The boys from the little stone house."



Some more old books, too, of course!



And...here is the pile of junk we threw away. Yes, I know it's small.

So, check out the next posting to see the list of books.

And stay tuned...we're working on creating a sister-blog where we'll list all the books and stuff we're offering for sale!

Week 2 in photos

Here I was waiting for Nick to upload the photos from week 2 onto my computer so I could post some and he already had. He just forgot to tell me.

So, before we move on to week 3, here's some stuff from week 2!



Here is the pile!




A postcard from 1954 to my great aunt from Paris.





A postcard to Sissy from 1951 of the pope with just "Saw his body today" written on the back. No one even signed the postcard.

That's it for now. I'm not sure what we'll be looking at for week 3!

Time - Who's Got It?

Cleaning. Who wants to clean?

Does it add to one's enjoyment in life?

Does it put food on the table?

Ok, this is only week number 2 and I'm having trouble following through. There are so many more important things in life to handle. Things that put food on the table. Things like reading emails, job hunting, gardening (literally putting food on the table - I couldn't resist that one).

So really, why bother cleaning?

I have an answer to that.

When my cousin Alison moved from Texas to New York, she shipped her worldly possessions in a moving truck. Since I only had a small apartment in the city, all of her things were not going to fit with all of my things. So we put most of her stuff and some of my stuff in storage. After a while we realized that spending that money every month wasn't the best, so we got rid of things, moved things around and put the rest over at my dad's. But unfortunately, dad's shed isn't moisture or mouse proof and Alison lost the queen size mattress to mold and things got eaten.

When Sheila's mom passed away and her step-father moved out of this house, we helped him move his stuff to storage. When he moved to Texas he took a few of his prized possessions and, being that most of the stuff he had in storage was originally his wife's, he gave that to her daughter, Sheila, along with the other stuff they had in storage prior to them moving into this house. So we inherited two storage spaces worth of their stuff.

I knew from moving Alison into my apartment, out of my apartment, into another apartment, moving my brother into NYC, moving both separately my apartment and Sheila's apartment from Hell's Kitchen to Jackson Heights, and moving various other friends in New York, all in the time of four years that moving to Connecticut was going to be a big task. So each weekend, as we were house hunting, which lasted six months, we moved boxes into one of the storage spaces left to us by Sheila's step-father.

When it came time to finally move we hired movers. I didn't want to lose friends by asking them yet again to help me move, plus we were going to take a whole week day off from work to do it. The guys I found were really good at packing little items into every space of that truck. I hired them for four hours. And extended it another two. And extended it another two. These guys packed every tiny item from our apartment into that 18' Penske truck. I know how to pack things pretty good after living in New York City for 13+ years and even I was impressed with how much they got in there. It took the two of them, Sheila and I eight solid hours of packing. Now, I'm only talking about moving things to the van and loading them in the van. Sheila and I had taken the day before to pack things into boxes. We knew enough not to leave it to the day of the move. And our mini-van was packed tight too. And still we had to throw things away. Eight full hours of loading, and Sheila and I worked another two hours after that. Plus the full day of packing the day before.

When we left that night, the Penske truck swayed from side to side as I drove up I95. There was so much weight from the contents that the truck could have tipped over. I couldn't go over 40 miles an hour. What does it cost to replace a moving truck? I'm glad I didn't have to find out.

While it was nice that Sheila recovered some of her childhood possessions, we didn't need the expense of two storage spaces. So over the next eight months, we condensed one of the storage spaces into the other. After getting repair work done in the basement and throwing out half of the contents from there, we decided to get rid of the expense of the second storage space. I again hired movers to help. There were over 100 boxes in storage. It's now all in our basement. Using the packing skills learned in NYC, I've piled the boxes floor to ceiling and now there's only a goat path through the basement. You can get to the electric box, boiler and water heater and that's it, as you can see from the pictures in Sheila's post.

There's a cost. For the space to store this stuff – either a storage space in the form of monthly rent, or at dad's house or our house in the form of a mortgage. You wouldn't buy a house so you could have more stuff. But you might not feel like you need to buy a bigger house, which costs more, if you didn't have so much stuff. There's the dollar cost of moving the stuff and the time cost. There's a cost on keeping the stuff in decent condition with heating and air conditioning. There's the time cost spent sorting through the stuff looking for something you can't find since you've got so many boxes to look through or your organization of the stuff is lacking. And the time spent trying to manage it all; piling boxes, moving them around, planning, organizing, hiring, renting, etc.

So why bother cleaning? Are you willing to pay these costs? Ok, I answered a question with a question, but the answer to the first lies in the answer of the second.

The Books

Religious Books:
God the Father, Guerry, Emile, 1947, 1st Edition
Enthronement of the Sacred Heart, Larkin, Francis, Rev., 1956, 1st edition.
The Bread of Life, Rosage, David E., 1979.
Will Religion Make Sense to Your Child?, Larsen, Earnest, 1970.
Do You Worry About the Future, Ed. Huber, M.J., 1970.
Not Without Parables, de Hueck Doherty, Catherine, 1977.
Sobornost, de Hueck Doherty, Catherine, 1977.
Mother Seton, Daughters of St. Paul, 1975.
A Companion to the Summa, Vol. 1, Farrell, Walter, 1945.
A Companion to the Summa, Vol. 2, Farrell, Walter, 1939.
Proceedings of The National Catechetical Congress of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Hartford, CT, Oct. 1-4, 1938, 1939.
My Spiritual Exercises, Kearney, John, 1945.
Credo: A Practical Guide to the Catholic Faith, Harrison, Martin, 1954.
Treasury of Prayer, 1954.
Letters of Father De Cloriviere, 1948.
The Way of the River, Ferlita, Ernest, 1977.
Paul VI Dialogues, Clancy, John G., 1965.
On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, St. Thomas Aquinas, 1955.
The Christ of Catholicism, Graham, Dom Aelred, 1957
The Reed of God, Houselander, Caryll, 1968
Keepin Your Balance in the Modern Church, O’Connell, Hugh J., 1968
How to Be REALLY with it, Basset, Bernard, 1971
Winning Converts, O’Brien, Rev. John A., 1957
Updated Devotion to the Sacred Heart, Kern, Rev. Walter, 1975
Daily Prayerbook for Holy Week, 1956
Religious Life, M. R., 1949
In Search of the Beyond, Carretto, Carlo, 1978
In the Beginning, St. Boniface, Sister M., 1969
Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic?, Baum, Gregory, 1965
Three Minutes a Day, Keller, James, 1960
We Agnostics, Basset, Bernard, 1970
A Critical Introduction to the New Testament, Fuller, Reginald H., 1966
Let’s Start Praying Again, Basset, Bernard, 1973
Repentance, Schlink, M. Basilea, 1976
Circular Letters of Pere de Cloriviere, 1957
The Way of Divine Love, Menendez, Sister Josefa, 1950
365 Mary, Koenig-Bricker, Woodeene, 1970
Daily Prayerbook for Holy Week, 1956
Why Am I Tempted, Remler, F. J., 1939
Teilhard Explained, De Lubac, Henri, 1968
A Heroine of the French Revolution Marie Adelaide De Cice, 1962
Sword, Miter, and Cloister, Bouchard, Constance Brittain, 1987
The Religion of the Occident, Larson, Martin A., 1961

Misc. Books:
Natural Healing, Bricklin, Mark, 1976.
How to Make Clothes that Fit and Flatter, Margolis, Adele P., 1969.
What Flower is That?, Macoboy, Stirling, 1971.
Wild Flowers of America, Rickett, H. W., 1953.
Latin for All Occasions, Beard, Henry, 1990
The Elements of Philosophy, Wallace, William A., 1977

Antique Books:

Pre-1929
The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Grecians, Mr. Rollin, Translated from the French in Ten Volumes, volume 5, 9th Edition, London, 1800
The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Grecians, Mr. Rollin, Translated from the French in Ten Volumes, volume 10, 9th Edition, London, 1800
The New Testament, Albany, NY, H. C. Southwick, The Second American from the Cambridge Stereotype Edition, 1813
A Catechism of the Catholic Religion, Deharbe, Rev. Joseph, 1878
Manual of Prayers, 1889
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Mullan, Elder Father, 1914.
The Lily of Israel, Gerbet, the Abbe, 1916
The Hand of God, Scott, Martin J., 1920
American Catholic Hymnal, The Marist Brothers, 1921
English Grammar, Green, John C., 1925.
Religion and Common Sense, Scott, Martin, J., 1926
How to Be Your Own Decorator, Koues, Helen, 1926
Paneling Walls with Wallpaper (pamphlet, excerpt from the book Wallpaper and Wallpaper Hanging), Young, Charles L. 1926
Marion Harland’s Cook Book
Mary Help of Christians, Benziger Brothers’

1930-1949
The Means of Grace, McNeill, Rev. Leon A., 1937
Connecticut State Register and Manual 1941
Connecticut State Register and Manual 1945 and 1946
Treading the Winepress, Stephenson, William, 1946
The Soul of the Apostolate, Chautard, Dom J-B, 1946
As Others See Us, Brenner, Henry, 1948
The Ways of mental Prayer, Lehodey, Right Rev. Dom Vitalis, 1949

Week Two

We have decided for our five boxes this weekend to tackle the equivalent of five boxes of stuff in our dining room. Our dining room will then become our staging and display area for our Five Box adventure.

Cole is happily bouncing in his exercauser and Genny is in the living room absorbed by her new Rainbow Fairy sticker and stencil books.

OK—let’s do this thing.

Nick and I are flattening out newspaper from last week’s dishes and I break my pinky nail off. Genny comes in to see what we are doing, sees my broken nail dangling from my finger, grabs it and says, “Ooh, can I keep it?!”

Proof that there really is an “I’ve got to keep it” gene and our daughter has inherited it!

So we made a big pile of books…a big pile of books! And there were a few other miscellaneous items, too.

The List

2 Puzzle 3D—Taj Mahal and Alpine Castle; each with over 1000 pieces

70 Books – 57 religious, 13 other; 5 from pre-1900, 8 from 1900-1929, 7 from 1930-1949, 2 that are definitely old, but missing the page with the copyright on them

Dried flowers in a picture frame

1 crying baby

Sister Corita art book box with articles from the newspaper and prints, too. (This was my mom’s)

Sissy pile of bible and religious pamphlet thingies

1 postcard from Paris to Sissy from 1954 found inside My Spiritual Exercises, Kearney, John, 1945.

Various papers found inside The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Mullan, Elder Father, 1914.

Social Security Act card for Sissy, 1945.

1952 Catholic Calendar card

Sissy typed out “Prayer for Russia – To the Little Flower”

Check back soon to see photos and our list of the books we found this weekend!