Midwest Mimi

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Grief That Grows

    Healing did not mean letting my mother go. It meant learning how to keep loving her in a way that did not cost me my own lifeā€”and allowing grief to change shape into something quieter, steadier, and still full of love.

  • Grief That Grows

    After eight years of anticipatory grief and the loss of my mother to early onset Alzheimerā€™s, I learned that grief doesnā€™t just take who you loveā€”it takes the shape of the world you built around them.

  • 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 wasnā€™t being…

  • Parenting Through Presence, Not Perfection: What My Kids Taught Me About Co-Regulation

    There were mornings I could feel myself going offline. Not dramatic. Just done. My patience thin, my nerves shot, my thoughts moving faster than I could hold them. Sometimes I would sit on the bathroom floor just to breathe and let the moment pass. And quietly, my kids would follow. They wouldnā€™t ask for anything.…

  • She Didnā€™t Sleep Through the Night for the First Three Years

    My daughter didnā€™t sleep through the night for the first three years of her life. Not once. She needed presence, pressure, and movement to settle. There was no diagnosis yet, no language for what we were navigating, only the quiet knowing that her body did not rest the way other babiesā€™ bodies seemed to. I…

  • The Privilege of Forgetting What Hunger Feels Like

    When SNAP benefits are delayed, millions of families face hunger again. We wonā€™t go hungry, my family has helped when we needed it most, but so many people donā€™t have anyone to fall back on. This isnā€™t about soda or candy. Itā€™s about dignity, belonging, and love that keeps showing up even when the world…

  • How Almost Dying Taught Me Lifeā€™s Too Short to Be Unhappy

    After surviving respiratory failure, I woke up to more than a second chance at lifeā€”I woke up to clarity. I stopped waiting for perfect moments, learned to protect my peace, and began truly living again. This is the story of how almost dying taught me what it means to be alive.

  • Lessons from Wonderland: What Alice Still Teaches Me About Life, Parenting, and Growing Up

    Lessons from Wonderland: What Alice Still Teaches Me About Life, Parenting, and Growing Up

    During a fall evening photo shoot turned Wonderland adventure, I realized how much Alice still has to teach us. Through curiosity, slowing down, difference, imagination, and growth, I found reflections of motherhood, healing, and becoming ā€” lessons tucked inside the golden light of an ordinary day.

  • šŸŒæ The Lives That Built Me ā€“ Grace in the Grit

    I rebuilt from rock bottom, not because life got easier, but because I learned to make peace with the life I can live. Thatā€™s grace in the grit: surviving, rebuilding, and loving every version of me that made it here.