Midwest Mimi

  • 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’m Not Trying to Go Viral. I’m Trying to Build My Way Out.

    I’m Not Trying to Go Viral. I’m Trying to Build My Way Out.

    I am not trying to go viral. I am trying to build my way out. A personal essay about building Midwest Mimi, Sunny Day Farm, books, art, and a future from the margins of chronic illness, poverty, motherhood, and stubborn hope.

  • 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.

  • I Promised My Grandma I’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 grandma’s hope, my mom’s absence, my dad’s bedtime chapters, my daughter’s childhood words, and the…

  • 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.

  • Taking Out the Trash

    We threw out what we didn’t need when we moved. Not just things. People too. It wasn’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 wasn’t built for…