Midwest Mimi

  • The Skateboard Is the Way In

    Two baskets of library books showed me what changes when learning begins with a child’s real interests. For Channing, the skateboard became the way in.

  • What Progress Actually Sounds Like

    My children did not lack the ability to learn. They lacked schools prepared to support them. This is what happened and what progress sounded like after we left.

  • Technology Did Not Cure My Chronic Illness. It Gave Me a Life Beyond Surviving It.

    After an unexpected fall sent me back to bed, I still wrote, connected, and applied for a grant from my phone. Technology has not cured my chronic illness, but it has given me a life beyond surviving it.

  • What If We’re Measuring Intelligence by the Wrong Things?

    A mystery novel made me think differently about the way we measure intelligence. In my own family, communication looks radically different from person to person, and I’ve learned that speech, reading, and quick answers are only part of the story.

  • The Worn Path

    A forgotten audiobook sent me down a rabbit hole about memory, learning, and the physical paths our brains build through repetition. It made me think about old relationships, survival habits, creativity, and the strange truth that the life we practice becomes easier to keep living.

  • What My Kids Learned From Watching Me Be Sick

    My kids have learned from watching me be sick that bodies have limits, asking for help is not failure, and families sometimes have to carry different corners of the load. My illness has cost them things, but it has also taught them that children do not need an invincible mother. They need one who loves…

  • When My Body Cancels the Plans

    A flare day is more than just feeling worse. It is when the systems I already use to manage chronic illness stop being enough. This is what that looks like inside a real family, and what I wish more people understood about loving someone whose body does not always cooperate.

  • 11 Ways to Disguise School as Real Life

    Kids do not all need the same path into learning. From cooking and gardening to movies, board games, special interests, and even boredom, real life is full of ways to help children learn without making everything feel like school.

  • The Blank Page Problem

    Sometimes creative block does not mean we have run out of ideas. Sometimes we just need a frame, a scene, a shape, or something already on the page to give us somewhere to begin.

  • This Wasn’t the Life I Planned. Midwest Mimi Is What I Made From It.

    I thought Midwest Mimi would be a blog about chronic illness, homeschooling, and nature. After 132 posts, I realized it had become something larger: a place to make meaning, find language for difficult experiences, and help readers feel seen.

  • I Don’t Think Everything Happens for a Reason

    People often say everything happens for a reason, but I do not believe every wound was chosen by God. I believe we live in a broken world, and that God can still meet us in the aftermath, restore what was lost, and help something good grow from what never should have happened.

  • I Still Want More

    I am happy with my life, but that does not mean I have stopped wanting more. I still want better health, more money, a home of our own, more freedom, and a bigger writing career. Contentment is not the absence of ambition. Sometimes it is simply learning to enjoy the breeze while you keep building…

  • Being Easy to Entertain Might Be My Greatest Life Skill

    Curiosity has helped keep my world big even when chronic illness has made my life physically smaller. Books, art, research, writing, family, and even something as simple as watching my son blow the seeds from a dandelion remind me there is always more to notice, learn, and wonder about.

  • A Small Life Is Not the Same Thing as a Meaningless One

    A life can become smaller in radius without becoming smaller in meaning. Disability, limited stamina, and money have changed the life I once imagined, but they have not taken away the people, stories, faith, beauty, and ordinary moments that make it full.

  • The Chair Theory

    What if fitting in has less to do with changing yourself and more to do with finding where you belong? The Chair Theory offers a simple way to think about friendship, self-acceptance, and learning when it is okay to find another table.