Last night, I told Royce not to push the buttons on my printer.

So he found a Mr. Potato Head hand and used that to push them instead.

Technically, I guess, he obeyed.

That is what building a dream looks like in my house right now.

Not quiet mornings in a clean studio. Not a dedicated office with a door that closes. Not a peaceful desk with matching supplies and a candle burning beside my laptop.

It looks like an art desk in the living room covered with pens, paper, scanned drawings, computer cords, a laptop, a printer, and whatever small plastic toy my toddler has decided to weaponize for chaos.

It looks like homeschooling happening around me.

It looks like my wife watching TV nearby while I work from bed because my body is done but my brain is still trying to make something useful out of the day.

It looks like telling a toddler, again, not to touch my things.

It looks like him finding a loophole.

And then it looks like me laughing because if I do not laugh, this baby will make me lose my mind.

This is the part of building that does not look impressive from the outside.

But it is real.

And that matters, because I am not trying to go viral.

I am trying to build my way out.

That is different.

I am trying to build Midwest Mimi into more than a blog. I am trying to build a body of work, a small business, a children’s book world, digital art products, and eventually, somehow, Sunny Day Farm.

I do not have investors, land, a studio, a team, or extra money sitting around waiting to be turned into a dream.

What I have is a disabled body, a house full of kids, a tired nervous system, a laptop, a printer my toddler keeps trying to operate, 59 scanned drawings waiting to be cleaned up, a printed middle-grade manuscript, and a stubborn belief that this can still become something real.

That is what I am working with.

And some days, it does not feel like enough.

This week alone, building looked like scheduling two blog posts a week through the end of May.

It looked like handing the rough draft of Rae of Sunny Day Farm to my daughter so she could read it and give me feedback.

It looked like starting notes for book two while book one sat printed nearby, twenty thousand words of proof that the story exists even if it still needs work.

It looked like 59 scanned drawings waiting on my iPad, an Apple Pencil charging, and me trying not to get overwhelmed by everything that comes after the art.

The art itself does not scare me. I enjoy that part. It is the administrative maze that intimidates me: file types, listings, product descriptions, website setup, sales pages, delivery systems. All the invisible steps between “I made something” and “someone can actually buy it.”

And while all of that was happening, real life kept being real life.

I watered the container garden.

I posted a couple of TikToks.

I kept up with schoolwork and housework.

I went out of town for Botox treatment for migraines.

I got through a HUD housing inspection.

I took a long nap because my body needed it, knowing full well it might keep me awake half the night.

None of those things look like one big breakthrough.

But together, they are the work.

That is the real middle.

Not the polished after-picture.

Not the success story with nice lighting.

The middle.

The place where appointments can swallow a whole week of energy. Where drawing makes my hand go numb and I have to stop until the feeling comes back. Where arthritis means I have to get up and move before my body gets too stiff from sitting too long.

The place where I do a lot of work on my phone because I can take it anywhere.

That phone matters more than people probably realize.

It means I can keep writing from bed while my wife watches TV nearby. I can make notes in the car. I can catch an idea before it disappears. I can keep working on some things even when my body is finished with the day.

I am lucky in that way. My mind often keeps going long after my body has worn out.

But there is a cost to that too.

Because wanting to keep going does not mean my body always lets me.

And then there is money.

Poverty does not just mean not having enough.

It means every next step comes with a pause button.

Supplies wait.

Programs wait.

Website upgrades wait.

Plans wait.

It means I have to find workarounds for things other people might simply pay someone else to solve.

It means Sunny Day Farm can feel so far away that some days I almost cannot look directly at the dream.

Especially on days like this.

Mother’s Day is tomorrow. My wife’s birthday is later this month. The money is already gone because out-of-town appointments meant gas, and Illinois has everyone reapplying for food stamps at the same time, so everything is backlogged and ours has not come through yet.

So we are making struggle meals.

Again.

And I am still sitting here trying to build something.

Survival does not politely wait in another room while you work on your dream.

It interrupts.

It asks for gas money.

It asks for paperwork.

It asks for energy you were saving for something else.

It asks you to be creative with dinner when what you really wanted was to be creative with art.

It makes the future feel far away, even when you know you are doing the right things.

Some days, building slowly feels almost foolish.

Some days, the bank account and the body argue with the dream.

The bank account says, use what you have now.

The body says, you do not have endless energy to spend on work that may never pay off.

The dream says, keep going anyway.

So I do.

Not because I am fearless. Not because I am naturally patient. Not because I have some perfect plan that makes all of this easy.

I keep going because I am not satisfied with just getting by.

I have gotten by for a long time.

I know how to stretch groceries, fill out forms, wait on systems, recover from appointments, pivot when a plan costs more than I have, and turn almost nothing into dinner.

I know survival.

What I want now is not just survival.

I want to build something better for my family.

That is why I write.

That is why I am building Midwest Mimi.

That is why I keep showing up to the blog, even when I am tired.

That is why I am making art into printable coloring and journaling pages.

That is why I am writing Rae of Sunny Day Farm.

That is why I am slowly building a whole world around nature, repair, family, imagination, accessibility, and the belief that something beautiful can still grow from a hard place.

Sunny Day Farm is not real yet in the way people usually mean.

There is no land deed.

No cabins.

No fairy trail.

No fire pit where guests sit at night.

No orchard. No swim pond. No lending library. No little workshops tucked into a barn.

No kids following fairy doors through the trees.

No tired mother sitting by the fire thinking, for once, this place was built with people like us in mind.

Not yet.

But it is real in the way most things are real before the world can see them.

It is real in notebooks, drafts, sketches, scanned drawings, porch gardens, and children’s stories tucked safely away instead of posted too soon.

It is real in a printed manuscript my daughter is reading at the kitchen table.

It is real in every blog post that helps someone understand what kind of voice I am building.

It is real in every person who reads and thinks, I want to see where this goes.

That matters.

People like dreams better once there is proof attached.

A book.

A product.

A storefront.

A piece of land.

A number that makes the work look legitimate.

But most real things do not start with proof.

They start with practice.

They start with somebody doing the work before anybody knows whether the work will matter.

They start with a tired mother opening her laptop anyway.

They start with a toddler using a Mr. Potato Head hand to push printer buttons.

They start with a body that has to rest and a mind that keeps reaching.

They start with one more post.

One more drawing.

One more page.

One more seed in a container on the porch.

That is where I am right now.

Inside the building.

Not on the other side of it.

I have not made it yet.

I do not have the polished after-picture.

I am still in the part where the work is real, but the results are not guaranteed.

That is why support matters now.

Not someday after the book is finished.

Not someday after the products are polished.

Not someday after the land exists.

Now.

I am not asking anyone to rescue me. I am asking people to recognize the work while it is still becoming.

When someone reads a post, subscribes, shares it, leaves a comment, likes a video, or tells somebody else, “I think you would connect with her writing,” that is not small to me.

That is part of the bridge.

It helps the work move farther than I can move it alone.

It helps the dream gather proof.

It tells the algorithms, sure, but more than that, it tells me something too.

Keep going.

We see it.

We want to know what happens next.

If you want to support what I am building, the small things really do matter.

Read the posts.

Subscribe if you want to keep following.

Share the ones that hit you.

Leave a comment when something makes you feel seen.

Send my work to someone who loves honest essays, chronic illness writing, neurodivergent family life, nature, art, or stories about building something from almost nothing.

That is not pity.

That is momentum.

I do not need pity.

I do not want pity.

Pity makes people small.

And I am not small.

I am tired sometimes.

Broke sometimes.

Overwhelmed sometimes.

I am working from conditions that are harder than I wish they were.

But I am serious.

I am trying no matter what life has thrown at me.

Not because effort magically fixes everything.

It does not.

Systems are real. Poverty is real. Disability is real. Burnout is real. Delays are real.

But so is the work.

So is the dream.

So is the stubborn little hope that keeps showing up at my art desk, in my bed, on my phone, in the garden, in the manuscript, in the scanned drawings, in the blog posts, and in the stories I am not ready to share yet.

That is what Midwest Mimi is becoming.

Not just a blog.

A record of someone building a life in real time from the place she actually stands.

A place with limitations.

A place with love.

A place with chronic illness and kids and bills and porch gardens and printer buttons and rough drafts and recovery days.

A place where the dream is not fancy.

It is safe.

It is rooted.

It is alive.

So no, I am not trying to go viral.

I am trying to build my way out.

From here.

From the margins.

From what I have.

Until the dream has somewhere solid to stand.