Midwest Mimi

  • My Kids Think School Is Out. I Know Better.

    School may be out for the summer, but learning has not stopped. In our house, summer learning looks like audiobooks, gardening, chores, paid work, boredom, conflict resolution, and all the practical life skills that do not fit neatly on a worksheet.

  • 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 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 daughter’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 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.