Attacking attics and so on

So, for some reason that neither of us could really remember, we determined to put a date on the calendar and make it Clean out the Attic Day. It was getting pretty full after 19 + years. (and in Florida, we don't have basements and our house doesn't have a garage, so Hello Attic, we love to put things in you!)
We paid our youngest kiddos for their help which we don't normally do on  "A Family Work Day", but we made an exception for this because we figured we'd be spending all morning and a little bit of a beautiful Saturday afternoon in an attic...  Blah!

OH MY STARS, it took NINE hours.
NINE!
We took every single thing out of it and then went through it all, and then took what we were keeping back up there, in an organized fashion. And in the process filled one trash can, one recycling can and have 11 contractor bags full of trash. Wow!
It was all very overwhelming.

Here is what I learned:

1. It isn't as rewarding as you think it will be when you are done, because you can't SEE the attic unless you climb up the ladder and go inside. : ) (which I was too tired to do after all that!!!!)

2. It wasn't necessary to save every cute outfit my kids wore as a babies. I've narrowed it down to about six. (I know I'm hopeless!) : )

3. Dolls! If I had to do it over, I would have let Joy play with the beautiful dolls she was given instead of keeping them in a box until she was 'older.' I think the doll window was a short one for her especially with two older brothers that she wanted to keep up with. And if you miss that window, then you have a pretty doll in a box and a girl who remembers that doll as "The Doll You Never Let Me Play With." Ouch! -Sorry, Joy. Sorry 'Jo' doll from Little Women. And maybe, just maybe a decorative doll isn't the best gift for a one year old. ; )
I did save two of her first dolls that she played with a lot! One was a cute little hand held one that she played with when she was a baby and the other was a big baby doll that looked so life-like people mistook it for baby Andrew. LOL  It was fun to see those dolls but they were sooo loved on that they were rather scary looking and we got a big laugh out of that. Think horror movie-ish. ; )

4. Plastic boxes, you are my friend. Some sweet sentimental things were destroyed that were packed away in trunks.

5. Computers! Apparently we have had a bunch! One of our boys sooo wanted us to keep our first Mac but the Attic Police said 'no' and had us take a picture of it instead. ; ) We now have 6 hard drives in a box instead of 6 CPUs. That's an improvement, right?

 6. Maybe I didn't need to save all the love letters that hubby and I wrote each other before we got married  because when are we EVER going to have a bunch of free HOURS upon HOURS to read those? Or want to? Well, who knows! But those did make it back in the attic. Shhh! ; )

~Becky