Midwest Mimi

  • The Hidden Cost of Simple Things

    A fall in the shower took only a few seconds, but the recovery may take days. This is the hidden cost of chronic illness: simple things are not always simple, and a slower pace does not mean a smaller dream.

  • My Daughter Is Not Half of Anything

    Mixed children should not have to prove they are enough of one thing to be treated as whole. As her white mother, I cannot know every layer of my daughterā€™s racial experience from the inside, but I can tell the truth about what I have witnessed. She is not half of anything. She is herself,…

  • 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 Promised My Grandma Iā€™d Be the One

    Printing the first draft of my middle-grade book made me realize I am closer than I thought to keeping an old promise. What started as 20,600 words on a screen became a stack of pages in my hands, carrying my grandmaā€™s hope, my momā€™s absence, my dadā€™s bedtime chapters, my daughterā€™s childhood words, and the…

  • The Bandwidth of Peace

    A rainy spring morning, a numb hand, an unfinished book-tree drawing, and a list of ā€œanalog hobbiesā€ 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. Itā€™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 theyā€™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 Thereā€™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.

  • Taking Out the Trash

    We threw out what we didnā€™t need when we moved. Not just things. People too. It wasnā€™t dramatic or loud. Just a quiet decision to stop carrying what was making our life heavier, and start building something more peaceful for our family.

  • Start Where You Are and Grow Something Anyway

    I thought I needed land to start a garden. A yard. The right setup. But all we had was a small porch, a few salvaged pots, and kids willing to get their hands dirty. So we started anyway. This is what it looks like to grow something real in a space that wasnā€™t built for…

  • šŸŒæ 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 didnā€™t go the way we expected. But somehow, it still gave us what we needed.

  • Why I Still Call Him Father

    My abuser went to church. For years I wrestled with what that meant about God. This is the story of why I still call Him Father, and how protecting my children became the clearest expression of my faith.

  • I Didnā€™t Refuse Help. I Didnā€™t Feel Safe Accepting It.

    When I turned down Early Intervention for my daughter, it wasnā€™t because I didnā€™t love her. It was because help didnā€™t feel neutral. It felt like exposure. For poor parents, the line between support and scrutiny is thin.

  • The Life Iā€™m Writing Into Existence

    I donā€™t have the money to build the life I want yetā€¦ so Iā€™m writing it first. This is the story of how Iā€™m creating a safer, slower, more intentional life for my familyā€”starting with imagination and turning it into something real.