My Midge
Originally written in 2024, before this became a real-deal research project. Edited and publishing it here because it's where this all started.
I have long been in love with these homes. They're cute, amirite?! I'll admit, maybe they're not everyone's cup of tea; around town people called them "chicken coop houses." When I was a teen, my mom once remarked that they were my "Barbie Dreamhouse" — or rather, more like a "Midge Dreamhouse" (who we thought was Barbie's discontinued little sister). So, we nicknamed them Midges.
No one but us knew of my deep admiration for this quirky home style; it was an inside joke. Until it wasn't a joke.
After completing my Bachelor of Science degree with my 1-year-old son Hudson's help, I didn't have any job prospects lined up. It was June 2009, and the subprime mortgage crisis was raging. I moved back home to Anita, Iowa to regroup while I found work. It eventually came in August, when a temp agency hooked me up with a position 60 miles away with a major national bank, doing loan modifications for mortgages in trouble. Data entry-type stuff. (It paid! Had benefits!) I learned a lot about life and home financing.
In the midst, my mom — who worked as a grocery store clerk and therefore knew all. of. the. town's gossip — let me know that a Midge was up for rent, and I should go look at it! I did. Like, immediately.
My Midge. That’s not our stuff.
It's a small old house, of course, and it wasn't in good condition. The wall-to-wall carpeting in ALL rooms was stained, worn, and certainly out of fashion; the shower was absolutely tiny with no bathtub; the cast iron sink looked like something out of a horror movie; the pink painted cabinets* were just a touch too tobacco-stained for my liking. However, the owners told me that I could paint the walls and cabinets whatever colors I liked — they owned a lumberyard. 🙌🏼 My creative heart was already jazzed about this house in an irrational way, but getting to finally "make a home" of my very own, for myself and my toddler son, was really truly a dream come true. We painted, shampooed the carpets, stuck a life-size pink statue of a bulldog in the yard (no reason) and moved in.
Hudson, insistent that the dog bit him.
*I later found some hard drug paraphernalia atop those cabinets, along with many airsoft gun pellets. Someone had a helluva time there.
I continued to make aesthetic improvements to this rental Midge during our time there. Apparently I hadn't learned enough about home equity at Wells Fargo. But rent was $300.
Pros (+) and cons (-) of our life with our Midge:
- Frost appeared on the walls and in the corners in the winter. As did mice.
+ Hudson thought it was cool to have snow inside!
+ The yard was huuuge, the landlord mowed it, and I held a slip-n-slide party for adults called the Slippery Nipple — complete with commemorative t-shirts and a signature shot to drink.
Huuuge backyard with cows to visit sometimes.
- Someone vomited all over my bathroom without my knowledge. Life tip: keep your toothbrushes in a covered location. Lesson learned. The hardest way.
T-shirt design I made for the first and last drinking party I've ever hosted.
+ We were featured in Apartment Therapy's "Smallest Coolest" contest.
That's my housekeeper Hudson, putting in an electrical safety cover for me.
+ I planted plants and grew a love for growing.
+ I ran three moneymaking schemes out of that shack: selling vintage clothing, making cold process soap from locally harvested deer tallow, and photography.
- I married the boy next door. That chapter ended poorly, which is a story for another time.
We moved out in ~March 2012 in order to live in my other #HouseCrush, which we had gut renovated: a slightly larger, concrete-block, single-pitch oddity whose original purpose was for the processing of chickens. Thankfully I owned this one.
Wait — my two first housing choices curiously have a chicken theme?!
. . . runs to Google 'chicken spirit animal'
Turns out the chicken totem stands for maternal love, nurturing, and protection — but also finding your voice, scratching hard for prosperity, and recognizing a productive period for new ideas and projects. Oh, and vigilance. A warning to watch for danger lurking nearby.
I was not vigilant enough. There was a fox in my henhouse. I have since relocated.
Yup. Wildly fitting for those points in my life.
So, that's some of the story of my life with our Midge*. And now, through this research project, she gets to tell hers.
*Henceforth: Kozy Home
Oblige me, this little boy just graduated from high school. 🥹
Let’s get back to some conventional research, shall we?
