Midwest Mimi

  • 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…

  • The Bandwidth of Peace

    A rainy spring morning, a numb hand, an unfinished book-tree drawing, and a list of “analog hobbies” got me thinking about disability, creativity, and accommodations. There is no prize for making the process harder. The prize is the peace we feel while making something.

  • 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.

  • Building in the Margins

    Some weeks disappear into therapy appointments, paperwork, specialist visits, and whatever decides to break while I am trying to keep up. This is what progress looks like in a high-needs household when you are building a better future in scraps of time and leftover energy.

  • When There’s No Cushion Left

    When you live with no cushion left, one small problem never stays small. A power outage, a broken washer, a missed deposit, and an empty tank can turn an ordinary day into something much heavier.

  • 11 Things That Help When My Body Is Done

    Some days my body is just done. Not one thing. Not just pain. All of it. These are the small, real things that actually help me get through.

  • I Haven’t Had a Good Day in a While

    I haven’t had a good day in a while. Not because I stopped trying, but because my body hasn’t caught up. This is what it looks like to keep showing up when even small things hurt.

  • 🌿 We Tried to Fix a Rut With a Grill

    We had been in a rut. Not eating together. Not spending time together. So we tried to fix it with a simple plan to grill dinner. It didn’t go the way we expected. But somehow, it still gave us what we needed.

  • The Survivable Option

    When you are poor, calling for help is never just about help. It is about what follows. In a crisis, parenting becomes a calculation between different kinds of risk. This is the story of the day I chose what looked indefensible from the outside and necessary from the inside.

  • I Didn’t Refuse Help. I Didn’t Feel Safe Accepting It.

    When I turned down Early Intervention for my daughter, it wasn’t because I didn’t love her. It was because help didn’t feel neutral. It felt like exposure. For poor parents, the line between support and scrutiny is thin.

  • The Life I’m Writing Into Existence

    I don’t have the money to build the life I want yet… so I’m writing it first. This is the story of how I’m creating a safer, slower, more intentional life for my family—starting with imagination and turning it into something real.

  • Parenting Again in Midlife: For the Mothers Who Thought They’d Be Done by Now

    What happens when the season you thought was coming never arrives? This essay is for women who find themselves parenting again in midlife, in bodies that have already lived. A reflection on layered motherhood, chronic illness, neurodivergence, and loving deeply while grieving what has changed.

  • Kids Do Well When They Can: Understanding Overwhelm Instead of Calling It Defiance

    My daughter had reached her limit long before I realized it. In the truck after a long day, her tone sharpened, her words came out rude, and I felt that familiar mix of frustration and helplessness. In the moment, it looked like bad behavior. What I could not see yet was that she wasn’t being…