Accomplishments & The Chaos They Bring

 This has been an intense week. Not everything came together as I planned, but I know it did exactly as God planned.

First, let's look at the accomplishments:

I received my diploma. I know that's a post hoc accomplishment since I finished my MS on March 20, but it feels more real with that certificate in hand.

Next, I received my passing score on the AMFTRB National MFT Exam. Again, this is a space where the work had already been done. I took the test back on April 18, but the score report didn't release until May 19! That was the longest wait ever! The way they administer and score the test is so stressful. I didn't even know what the passing score would be until I received my scores, which takes roughly 20 business days from the close of the testing window. This concerns how they score each exam and how they batch all tests taken during any testing window. I really think, with today's technology, it should be a faster process, but what do I know?

I also started my PhD program on Monday. The decision to pursue my PhD was complex, but after much consideration, I knew it was the right one. If all goes according to plan, I'll be graduating by June 2031. 

This is where the chaos starts. This is the first week most of the kids are out of school for the summer, so all the appointments we needed to make are this week. Add to that, Nicci graduates Saturday. Between all six of the lives-at-home kids, that's seven appointments, including medical specialists, orthodontics, Senior parent activities, etc. That makes for very busy days!

I wasn't originally planning to start classes this week because I already had so much going on. Still, due to funding changes for advanced degrees in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which goes into effect July 1, I needed to be in class by May 18 to remain under the current funding structure. And, a PhD program is no joke. As much as the intensity increased between BS and MS, it increased even more between MS and PhD. For Week 1, I had several articles to read, 3 papers to write in APA 7 formatting, research to complete those papers, and a meeting with my professor. 

Add to that church activities. This week, our church held a special presentation by the Creation Truth Foundation titled " Our American Founding." The presentation was done in 4 parts, so we were at church Sunday through Wednesday for that. Sunday was our regular 10am to 1130am format, while Monday through Wednesday was 7pm to about 830pm each night. Also, it was the last week of Ladies Bible Study before we broke for summer, so I was there for that Tuesday from 10am to 1245pm. 

And the chaos doesn't stop there. 

And the chaos doesn't stop there. Since I finally got my score in for the AMFTRB National exam, I can now finish my licensure applications for Oklahoma and Texas. That means yet another fingerprint background check, since everyone wants their own through the system they use. I also need to schedule meetings with three people to get the required forms signed so they can be submitted to the appropriate licensure boards. Completing this process is especially important since I have been out of the office since March 20 and cannot return to work until I am licensed. I have several clients who elected to take a break while I am out of the office, so I am working hard to get back to them.

Plus, we live in the country. Not a little out of town, like 20+ minutes to anything we need to do out in the country. Most of the appointments and activities this week have been about an hour from the house. That means I have been up very late each night for me. Generally, I am asleep by 830pm since I get up around 330am, but we weren't even home most nights until around 10pm. Getting to bed so late has resulted in me sleeping almost an hour later each day, which may not seem like much, but with this week's schedule, it is hugely impactful on my ability to get everything done.

At this point, I have spent more than enough time on this post, and I know I have a million other things to do. Today is Nicci's graduation and the day she moves out of the dorms, so I won't have time after about 7am to work on anything else. Also, all my assignments for this week are due by Sunday night. With that in mind, I'd better get back to all the things I still have to do this week.

Staying Active = Staying Sane

 I know I said I was going to do better with posting regularly, and I think I am off to an okay start. At least it's only been about a week since my last post. That's significantly better than the years that passed before I rediscovered this space earlier this month. But it's still not where I want to be. When I write, even these little digital diaries, I feel more me. That makes a lot of sense because writing has always been part of who I am. I love to write. In fact, before I decided to return to school, writing was what I did.

Back in 2014 or so, I began working as a freelance writer. I loved it! Over time, I worked my way from crap one-piece assignments with no attribution to becoming a featured regular writer for a specific website with not only a signature line but an entire biography page. I even managed to write a couple of viral articles. Then 2022 hit, and I returned to school to pursue the path I am currently on. In those early days, I wasn't confident I could work as much as I was and still find time for school and family. So, I stopped working as a freelancer. I know it was the right choice at the time, but it was still hard.

Since 2022, my writing has been almost exclusively academic. Not to brag, but APA 7 formatting is my forte. The problem is that academic writing doesn't fill the same space as freelancing or writing for pleasure (yep, that's a thing, lol). So, I'm glad I found this blog again, and I'm going to view making posts as a form of self-care. For now, I'm not going to go insane with it because of other factors (details in the next post!). I'm making a self-commitment to post at least once every week. That may not mean one every seven days, but it will mean that there will be at least one new post every calendar week. If I track correctly, that means the maximum number of days between posts if I post at the beginning of one week and the end of the next would be 13 days. 

It's important for me and my mental health that I take the time to care for me. I have a lot of obligations and my life is made of so many moving pieces, but I also know I cannot give what I do not have. Writing, even just these posts, recharges my battery in a way I didn't realize I had been neglecting until I came back to it. I'm actually rather excited to be back here and I look forward to being able to look back at this season in my life with a clear picture of what this time will hold for me.

An Introduction to the Characters

 Because so much has changed since I last regularly posted, I thought it best I introduce the main characters in my story. This is just to provide a brief introduction to each of the most important people in my life so that when I mention someone it's a little clearer who the heck I am talking about.

First, there's Luke. That's my husband. He is a 32 year old electrician. Yes, I am well aware of the age gap and I'll be the first to admit that I was not comfortable with it at first. However, he somehow manages to be one of the oldest person I have ever interacted with. Talking to him, no one would ever guess his age. Most people in our circle assume us to be the same age or him to be older. Being raised by an older mother and grandmother contributed I'm sure, but that barely tells the story. I affectionately call him a "Bible dork". This is a man who spends hours listening to apologetics and discussions on the intricacies of the Bible. He thinks deeply about things, is calm, and probably the most consistent person I have known in my life.

Next is Samantha. She's technically the oldest. Samantha is 21 and lives about 45 minutes away. Honestly, she has been the most difficult of the children. There's a lot there but I'll summarize with the fact that she has a lot of mental health problems and issues with addiction. There were plenty of days I didn't think we would ever even get to 18, but here we are now. She tends to make impulsive decisions and was under guardianship until just a couple of months ago. I still see her regularly and talk to her even more.

Then we have Jenny. She has always functioned as the oldest. Seriously, even Samantha will say Jenny has always been her big sister. Jenny is 19. She has a husband, Will. He is an amazing guy and exactly the type of man I would have wanted for my daughter. In October 2024, Jenny got the same stomach virus that the other kids were passing around and it triggered the onset of chronic health issues. She says she now sees all the ologies and we are still working for a definitive diagnosis but know it is autoimmune in nature. Even with her struggles, she is a fighter! She still finished high school and tech school in Early Childhood Education. She works with Will (that's how they met) and we all work to support her in being able to do what she wants to do while still accommodating her health issues. Because her health requires a lot of extra support, Jenny and Will live here with us as they save for a house and look for something near their support system.

Nicci is next. She is 18 and about to graduate from the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. OSSM is a boarding school for super smart kids. She has been there since the beginning of her Junior year so she occupies a space something like Schrodinger's cat where she both lives here and doesn't. After graduation, Nicci will be moving to San Antonio to attend Trinity University as a Biochemistry major before pursuing her doctorate in Pharmacology. It's hard to think about her being so far away, but it's also exciting to watch her soar. 

Houston is the oldest of the boys at 16. He is a great student as all the kids are and is about to finish his Sophomore year in high school. He is active in the choir. He is also very active in the church he attends and will even be leading some Sunday School lessons and preparing to be able to preach over the summer. He plans to join the Army after graduation and wants to pursue a career in law enforcement. Being from a blue family, I support this fully but also know the risks in pursing this path. He is outgoing and energetic. You never really know what he's going to say which is part of what makes him fun. 

Elli is the youngest of the girls at 14. We are at the end of her Freshman year. She is the girl of the girls. She loves purple, pink, unicorns, and big bows. She is currently having some health struggles of her own, likely related to the incident when she was a baby, but she never lets it stop her. She is active in the choir, loves reading, and crafting. She has a huge heart and loves her friends and family deeply. Elli talks about attending tech school in her Junior year to pursue Early Childhood Education and vacillates between wanting to be a teacher or a therapist when she grows up.

Rex is 13 and in 7th grade. He is active in band and choir. He is the quiet one of the bunch. He loves gaming and being outside which is an odd contrast but somehow works for him. He was the youngest for a long time and will tell you to this day he still doesn't want a little brother.

Finally, we have Denny. He's 6 and in Kindergarten. He is very bright and also a bit of a trouble-maker. His teacher this year has been letting him work on advanced skills so he already reads and does math at a 2nd grade or higher level. He is independent and funny. I think in part because his siblings were all so much older than him, he really seems very grown for his age and I often say he has been a teenager since birth.

So there you have it, a brief introduction to the 8 people who are the biggest part of my life. I'm certain you'll come to know them all better over the course of my writing, but at least now when I say a name, you'll have some idea of who I am talking about. 

Early to Rise

 Yesterday we celebrated Mother's day for a lot of practical reasons. We don't all go to the same church, Jenny also has a husband whose mother also needs to be visited, restraunts were way less crowded, Nicci didn't have other plans, and the list could go on. I have said repeatedly I have plenty of stuff and all I wanted was their time. So, we all went to lunch. We tried somewhere new. Although it wasn't great food or service, sitting there with 6 of the 7 kids was amazing! 

This morning, I woke up to this. I don't even know which of the kids set it here, but I know it brought tears to my eyes. Not because they spent a ton of money or even because I collect teddy bears and now I have another one. It's because I felt so seen. This wasn't wrapped and presented by the purchaser. It simply sat on top of my laptop on my desk. That may seem like an odd choice, but for me it was the most logical for someone who sees me.

See, the way I have gotten through school to date and still managed everything else in my life is through a structured routine. My coffee pot gets preset every night to auto brew at 4am. Every day my feet are on the floor by 330am and by 415am, I am sitting at my desk, coffee in hand. This has been my routine since April 2022 when I began going to school. It gives me the quiet I need to focus. It allows me to still be present for the day to day functions of a large family. Because this has been the routine for 4 years now, someone knew that sitting it there would make it the first thing I really saw today.

And, it's more than that still. It reminds me of the type of people I am raising. People who think about others and know the value of the small things in life. People who see others not just in what they do for them, but as individuals with their own thoughts, needs, and personalities. 

It makes me think of an exchange that I had with another parent in our school district a few years back. We live on gravel roads and I was about a mile from the house when I realized my tire was flat. There was no way I was making it home. This was the first flat I had had in the sedan I was driving, and my jack was not going to get the job done on that section of gravel road, there just wasn't enough clearance to get that style of jack under the car. Someone came out to help (I do love that about country neighbors) and we struck up a conversation about our kids. He said his daughter also went to the school and was in the same grade as one of mine. He asked if my daughter knew his. I said I recalled the name but wasn't certain how close they were or if it was even the same girl. He told me I would know if it was his daughter because she wore a prosthetic and that's the first thing anyone ever mentioned. Based on that, I said I didn't think my daughter knew his. When I got home, I asked my daughter if the girl she had mentioned several times by name had a prosthetic limb to which the answer was yes. I told her about the encounter with the girl's dad and my surprise at the information. It was in that moment that I saw a real glimpse of the people I am raising. My daughter responded with "well, I never mentioned it because it never mattered to what we were talking about." She had not used the girl's disability as a mark of identification. She just knew the girl. The prosthetic wasn't how she saw her, but a part of a whole person. Because none of our discussions surrounding the girl had been related in any way to her disability, it never got mentioned. 

I say all the time I have amazing kids. They are bright, caring, people who haved really been predominantly as easy as any parent could ask for. But moments like this long ago exchange or finding a teddy bear seated on my laptop serve to highlight that all the more for me. I have been raising kids that see people as they are, past the narrow lense that the world may hold, to what makes them who they are. There have been many days I have questioned my ability as a mother, whether I was making too many mistakes, if I was doing this right at all. Parenting is hard and I certainly didn't have a good example, but in these moments, I feel like I haven't done too bad even for all my mistakes.

It's Been How Long Exactly?

Wow, I had rather forgotten I even had this blog. If I had not been working over the last couple of days to clean up my social media, I may have not remembered it still. It has been just over 8 years since my last post. That is forever in the digital age, and yet these years have flown by at a speed that simply boggles the mind. So much has changed! 

When I started this blog, I was a 32 year-old married stay at home mom of 4. But, I was so much more even then. I was one of the millions of people in this country who was in a domestically abusive relationship. I lied, a lot. I hid it well. He would tell me when I tried to challenge how I or the children were treated that we could not be being abused because look at all the nice things we had. Um, yeah I forgot that's how that part works! If you read my last post from May of 2018, you know something about how this story continued to unfold. By May of 2015, I had 6 children between the ages of 2 and 10, and I reached a breaking point. I realize now that even in that 2018 update, I still had so much work to do. I thought I had healed, figured it all out (which is the funniest idea of all looking back), and knew the trajectory of my life. I see that I still avoided any real conversation about what life was like leading to that day, or what exactly happened that started changing everything. I know that's a story I still need to tell, to share with others who may find themselves in a similar situation to where I found myself that day in 2015. I know this will sound like avoidance, but it isn't because if I share everything today, this one post would be about a novel long!! 

So, this is my statement of commitment to get it all out there over the next few weeks, but for today, I want to provide a new and more honest introduction than the one I have shared in the past.

My name is Harli. I am 47 years old. 

I have 2 babies in Heaven and 7 here on Earth. My babies in Heaven have been there for 25 and 10 years. My babies here are 21, 19, 18, 16, 14, 13, and 6. In other posts, I will tell you all about each one of them, where they are now, what they are doing, etc, but for today, let me stay on track with my introduction.

In February 2025, I married the first truly good man I have ever been in a relationship with. Our story is as messy and complex as most any other part of my life, but it's also so different than my previous relational experiences. This is a man who loves and supports me as I continue to change and grow. He loves all the children as if they were his own and I am thankful every day to have found him. As with the children, this is a story for another day, but it will be told.

I am a Christian. That's something I never thought I would say. Over the years I have looked at most every religion one could imagine. In the end, I decided the very concept of God was a lie because no all powerful, just being would have laid out the life I had lived for anyone He supposedly loved. I had embraced atheism in name, but in my heart I was just incredibly angry. How that changed is also another story for another day. I feel like I will be saying that a lot in this post!

I am a survivor! I have suffered an assortment of abuses from my very earliest memories, yet here I am still. Not only have I lived, but as I have healed and changed, I thrive. 

I am a college graduate and also student. In May 2022, I returned to school to begin pursuing my BS in Psychology Pre-Counseling. I earned that degree in March 2022 and in April 2022 I began my MS in Marriage and

 Family Therapy. I earned that degree in March 2024. I have maintained a 4.0 throughout the entirity of my journey to date. In just 9 days, I start my PhD in MFT program. If all goes according to plan, in 2031 I will graduate with my Doctorate. 

I am currently waiting on the results of my national licensure exam. I am in the process of licensure in 2 states, Oklahoma and Texas. As soon as I recieve my passing score, I will be finishing the process and will hold an LMFT Candidate/Associate license in these states. Once I have my licenses, I will return to working at The Center for Christian Counseling and Care where I completed my internship.

I am a plus-sized woman. I'm nowhere near the size I was when I was last talking about my weight and constantly beating myself up over every ounce, but at 5'3 and 190 pounds, the label still fits. 

I have physical disabilities. I am certain that the abuses my body has endured over the years is a contributing factor as well as the large amount of weight I carried for so long. I have arthritis in many parts of my body including my spine. There are days when even getting out of bed feels like a challenge, but I have faced and overcome challeges before so I get up every day, regardless of how painful it may be. 

I'm a tattoed nerd! I currently have about 40 tattoos reflecting many of my passions. If you see my ink, there's not really any doubt of my nerdiness, lol My ink reflects my love of my family and fandoms. I attend comic conventions and cosplay. 

Even all of this is just a small glimpse of who I am and who I am becoming. This life was built on the remains of who I was and the healing I have done over the years. I am excited to be back at my keyboard and sharing this journey. I look forward to walking this path wherever God leads me. My hope is that in sharing this, you may find strength, hope, and inspiration.