Midwest Mimi

  • I Have Lived, and I Still Love My Life

    Some evenings, peace feels like a summer breeze on the porch. My life has not been easy, and I would not choose every hard thing again. But my life is not only the record of what hurt me. It is family, survival, softness, love, and the ordinary wealth of a home I still want to…

  • Survival Is Not the Same as Safety: What We Forget When We Praise Strong Children

    When we praise children for being strong, we do not always ask what made them need that strength so young. Reading Demon Copperhead made me think about my daughter Rae, about the burned pot of macaroni and cheese she tried to make for her brother, and about the difference between a child being resilient and…

  • She Learned to Work Before the World Called It Work

    Rae learned to work before the world called it work. At twelve, she cleaned my brother’s shop office for real money, real expectations, and a little freedom of her own. I am proud of the confidence work gave her. I also grieve that money had to matter so young.

  • What the Calendar Couldn’t Hold

    June was full of appointments, reschedules, travel, surgery recovery, and work. I needed the calendar, the reminders, and the map. But the best parts of the month happened in the margins: porch conversations, toddler hugs, family dinners, chalk on the sidewalk, and ordinary beauty I almost missed.

  • I Am the Calendar, the Case Manager, and the Backup Plan

    Caregiving is not just loving people. It is logistics, memory, paperwork, appointments, refills, therapies, bills, and backup plans. I am grateful I can carry the map for my family, but I am also tired from doing it inside a body that needs care too.

  • My Life Is Material. My Family Is Not Content.

    I write from real life because that is how I process what I have lived. But not every true thing belongs online. My family may appear in my work, but they are not the product. Their dignity comes first.

  • Our Container Garden Became a Mystery Garden

    Our container garden started with salvaged pots, scattered seed packets, and a toddler who thought organization was optional. Now it is teaching us patience, food skills, homeschool science, and how to practice for the future before we have the land.

  • Some Work Is Meant to Be Tended, Not Posted

    I almost posted a children’s story inspired by my mother. Then I realized it was not a blog post. It was a seed. A reflection on creativity, legacy work, poverty, patience, and learning when to share the work and when to let it grow.

  • The Same Girl Either Way

    A personal essay about homeschool culture, girlhood, faith, rebellion, and learning that someone else’s narrow idea of a “godly girl” did not get to define who I was.

  • Not Cosmetic

    A personal essay about illness, poverty, motherhood, Medicaid, medical dismissal, and what happens when visible survival gets mistaken for failure.

  • The Life I Want Is Not Fancy. It Is Safe.

    The life I want is not fancy. It has dirt in it, a modest house, a garden, a porch, woods, pasture, and enough safety for my family to breathe. I am not chasing luxury. I am trying to build stability, space, financial security, and a life where safe is not treated like a luxury.

  • I Am Practicing the Life I Want Before I Can Afford It

    I did not know it was abundance. I thought it was dinner. Homemade bread, canned pears, fresh tomatoes, animals, woods, pasture, and food that came from the work of our own hands. I do not have the land yet, but I can still practice the skills, rhythms, and values of the life I am building…

  • I Am Learning to Build Without Burning Myself Down

    The old me knew how to hustle, but hustle taught me to measure everything by immediate payout. Now I am learning a different kind of discipline: building a life my body can sustain. One that makes room for chronic illness, family, rest, creative purpose, and the stubborn return to the work that still matters.

  • He Sounded Like Home, Even When Home Was Chaos

    When people say they love Jelly Roll, I know what they mean. But when I say it, I mean something different. I mean his music found me when I was still in the middle of my hustle years, back when survival felt like adrenaline and invincibility. This is not just about fandom. It is about…

  • It Was a Disaster Then. It’s Funny Now.

    A dead mouse in a preschool backpack. A toddler who accidentally made prison wine in a sippy cup. A blue paint trail leading to a hidden child in the pantry. Some parents seem to know exactly what they’re doing. I have mostly just survived one absurd parenting disaster after another.