I thought my husband and I came up with the word "Zenify" to refer to our de-cluttering phases that we go through, but lo and behold, it is already listed in the Urban Dictionary with exactly the same meaning:

Oh, well. I guess it wasn't all that clever, really. Even prior to making the final decision to leave China and pursue a PhD, we had started periodically sorting through different areas of the house and getting rid of excess. For us "zenifying" is fairly straight-forward: get rid of anything that is either not used or does not have sentimental/aesthetic value . A few things are allowed into the I-Might-Use-This-Some-Day category, but the mindset behind it all is not "What can I keep?", but rather "What can I do without?"

Today begins Lent and today begins the process of zenifying my house. I thought I would start nice and easy with the space under the stairs where we keep shoes and coats. "Nice and easy", huh?! I'm glad I chose this place to start because as I went along, I kept finding more and more areas of the hallway that needed cleaning/dusting/sorting, etc... It is a good wake-up call for me to realize what I'm heading into these next 6 weeks of spring cleaning. This is part of the reason that I have chosen to only tackle one area a week. With all the interruptions and extra messes that occur in my daily life, I'll be amazed if I can check off all the boxes by each Friday.

Speaking of Friday, I will try to get my plan for next week posted in the next couple of days. We are heading to the bathroom and hallway closet and we're going with a checklist in hand. Dust bunnies beware!