In Which I Attempt to Explain Why the World Needs One More Blog Plus the Origin of This Blog's Title

I've been thinking about starting a blog for over a decade, almost as long as I've known blogs were a thing. I fancy myself a writer, though I've only had a handful of magazine pieces published, and I figured, even if no one ever read it, it would be a good exercise for me to write somewhere regularly other than in my journal. That was back in the day when I actually wrote regularly in said journal, as opposed to my current habit, which involves an entry every six months or so if I'm feeling particularly  inspired. So now that I'm not even journaling regularly I have an even better excuse for starting a blog. Of course, everyone and her sister and cousin and maiden great aunt has a blog these days, so why should you read mine? If you're looking for a blog that focuses on just one specific topic that interests you, go ahead and look elsewhere. If you're looking for a blog with advice on how to be an ideal parent, you can look elsewhere. However, if you're looking for a kindred spirit who also doesn't have all the answers but wants to spend time reflecting on parenting, marriage, spirituality, and living a good life amidst challenges, you've come to right place. I'd invite you to metaphorically sit down with me with a cup of coffee if it weren't for the inconvenient fact that I hate coffee. Perhaps we can share a metaphorical cup of tea, or maybe a cherry coke. You can even have some coffee, just don't expect me to drink it.

So where did I come up with the name? It's been in my head for years, ever since a post I made in an online discussion forum once upon a time. My daughter, who will be known as Kittygirl, had turned six years old just three weeks previous, and had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Since I'm an average 21st century person, one of the first things I did after my daughter fell asleep in her hospital bed that first night of our new reality, I searched Facebook for groups of parents of type 1 diabetics. There are about 5,000 of them, give or take a few thousand, and an awful lot of them include posts that are terrifying. Type 1 diabetes is weird. On one side, it's a very serious, even scary disease. Simultaneously, it's a chronic medical condition that can be managed quite well with the medicine and technology available these days and people with  type 1 diabetes can do anything people without diabetes can do, with some extra prep and extra steps in many cases. I joined every Facebook group I could find initially, and I was quickly overwhelmed with information, much of it from parents who were terrified and never wanted to let their kids out of their sight. I knew I couldn't live like that, and I turned for advice to the chat forum on the Well Trained Mind site. This is mostly partly of a set of forums for discussion of homeschooling materials, methods, and more, which I had spent several years browsing and sometimes posting on while dreaming of homeschooling my son, who will be called Squirrelboy and who was 11 at this time. Ironically, this school year I was finally homeschooling him for the first time, and I'd been so busy I hadn't spent much time on the Well Trained Mind forums. However, I figured that, with the many thousands of parents represented, there had to be some who were more experienced parents of kids with T1D, and they might be able to give me a less crazy perspective. I was not disappointed. Many people commented and reassured me that we would find a way to live well with this new challenge. People also encouraged me to leave diabetes parenting groups that I didn't find helpful and one person in particular, whose name I have long since forgotten, encouraged me to consider looking for smaller groups in which I might find my tribe, as opposed to the gigantic easier to find pages. Maybe, she said, a huge general group with a name like "Parents of Type 1 Diabetics" (there's probably a group with this name, but I'm not referencing a particular group) wasn't my style. Perhaps, she wrote jokingly, I'd instead find my tribe in a group with a name like, "Misfit Parenting with Cupcakes."  I still haven't completely found my tribe in the diabetes online community 2 1/2 years on, but I really appreciated that advice and the name has stuck in my head every since. I did spend way too much mental effort deciding whether I should modify it to "Misfit Parenting with Cupcakes and Jesus," thus identifying it as a blog written by a Christian. In the end, I decided not to, in large part because I don't want to scare away people who belong to a different religion or none at all. The fact is, my faith and my Christian worldview are going to influence what I write, but I'm not going to fill it with Christianese, and I hope it's interesting and helpful to those who share my worldview and to those who don't.

To conclude, I'll briefly introduce myself and my family. I'm currently a stay at home mom, with an unused MA in Spanish literature and experience as a teacher in a variety of venues. I've lived in Kentucky for almost half my life now, but I'm originally a Michigander. I love books, especially books written for middle graders, and I like to eat cupcakes a little too much. I'm not officially diagnosed with any invisible disabilities, but I suspect that I have mild ADHD. I'll tell you why in some future post. My husband, whom I'll call Mr. Engineer, has also lived in Kentucky for almost half his life and is originally a Wisconsinite. We had to move to Kentucky to meet each other, presumably because there's a big lake in between Michigan and Wisconsin :). He works as an engineer (hence the nickname) and also thinks like an engineer and wants to make every decision logically, which can drive me crazy. He also has never officially been diagnosed with a disability, invisible or otherwise, but he diagnosed himself with dyslexia, and it's pretty obvious when you get to know him that he could easily get an official diagnosis if he wanted one. Our son, whom I've already introduced as Squirrelboy, is 14 and has official diagnoses of dyslexia and ADHD (moderate combined type). Our daughter, previously introduced as Kittygirl, is 8  and has no attention or learning challenges. Just to make life interesting, sometime in her 6th year of life, her immune system decided to attack the beta cells in her pancreas to the point where her body produces almost no insulin and she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I hope you're able to enjoy and maybe even learn something from the view into our lives that this blog will offer.