All posts by Eve Ogden Schaub

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About Eve Ogden Schaub

Serial memoirist Eve O. Schaub lives with her family in Vermont and enjoys performing experiments on them so she can write about it. Author of Year of No Sugar (2014) and Year of No Clutter (2017) and most recently Year of No GARBAGE (2023). Find her on Twitter @Eveschaub IG or eveschaub.com.

Our Communal Closet

One in a Thousand, ,

oneinathousandlogoE.O. Schaub

For many of us, the bi-annual change of seasons is like Mother Nature’s reproving reminder to clean our room, already. Around here, we’re reorganizing everything for the End of Warm and the Beginning of Cold: tank tops go away, sweaters come out; bug spray goes away, boot rack comes out; school nurse’s hand-out-about-tick-removal-and-Lyme-Disease-on-the-refrigerator comes down, school nurse’s handout-about-flu-symptoms-and-hand-washing goes up.

ClothingSwap
What I'm Bringing!

In the midst of all this transition, it usually seems to me like a good time to take stock and get rid of stuff I don’t need. If you know me, then you know that I’m a well-established pack rat, and Stuff-I-Don’t-Need is my middle name. After visiting the houses of some of my relatives I can confirm with confidence that I come by this genetically. In fact, it is only through sheer force of will and the specter of an imaginary Martha Stewart tsk-ing over my shoulder, that I manage to have a home that does not resemble that of the infamous brothers who made tunnels through the piles of newspapers in their house until the day a landslide killed one of them.

(These are the things I think about when I’m perusing my large and extensive collection of rah-rah clutter-busting books with chapter titles like “Simplify your Spice Cabinet!” and “Magazines Aren’t for Keeping, you Know!” and “You Know You’ll Never Learn to Quilt So Get Over it Already!”) Continue reading Our Communal Closet →

What Halloween Means to Me

One in a Thousand,

oneinathousandlogoE.O. Schaub

I am nuts. Totally certifiable. I know this because every year around this time every adult person I know- my husband, my mother, my friends- tells me so.

You see, I’m making my children’s Halloween costumes.

LittleBoPeepInProgress
Little Bo Peep in Progress

I know. I know! I know that we can buy entire ensembles complete with magic wands, flashing light sabers and realistically blood-drenched machetes at Wal-Mart for less than the price of a pack of gum. I know that it would be better for my child’s imagination to make a costume herself out of empty Cheerios boxes and tin foil.

It doesn’t matter. I’ve begun to realize this is something beyond comprehension that I am simply going to have to accept. And thus every fall, like swallows returning to Capistrano, I find myself wandering the aisles of Jo-Ann Fabrics, trying to figure out where the ¼ inch elastic might be.

Oh, and I should mention that I don’t sew. Did I mention that? Or rather, I didn’t sew, way, way back in the Mesozoic Pre-Children Era, and for most intents and purposes I still don’t. I am completely self-taught on a steady, if infrequent diet of girl’s Halloween costumes, which is to say that, over the years, I’ve managed to make a velveteen ladybug antennae cap, a black felt nun’s habit, a Madeline cape and a satin off-the-shoulder princess gown, but I am completely incapable of hemming my daughter’s pants. Continue reading What Halloween Means to Me →

The August that Never Was

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oneinathousandlogoE.O.Schaub

If you haven’t been in Vermont this summer then you might not know what a weird, wet, clammy time it’s really been around here. June was tepid and iffy; July was a soppy, mosquito-filled bust. Gardens everywhere around here were looking like the setting for a horror flick entitled “Attack of the Slimy, Water-Treading Slugs from Heck!” (Movie slogan: “Would you be ready if your tomatoes… never ripened?!?Aieaaagh!!!”) People have been applying raincoats instead of sunscreen and- brace yourself- carrying umbrellas. I know! That’s how drastic things have been. Our driveway runneth over.

August was the only month presenting a respectable semblance of some summery-ish weather, and the annual monster heat wave? You know the one: the heat-wave-that-inspires-you-to-finally-give-in-and-haul-the-AC-unit-out-of-the-four-million-degree-attic-and-give-yourself-a-triple-hernia-in-the-process? Never came.

One night my husband and I were exclaiming over a slight rise in humidity when he had a bright idea- “hey!” he said, “I could, you know, open these windows!” Oh yeah! They open! That’s the kind of summer it’s been. Continue reading The August that Never Was →