music, therapy, and me

The past week has been rough, all. Not just the immense issues with our current leadership in this country, but also on a personal level. I had the flu last week - three days of high temperature and a nasty cough that is lingering. It was not the best time, but I am hoping that is over. Turns out, many people at work had the flu last week. It wasn't just me who was out. Last week was a lost week. I am exhausted right now. I am not really looking forward to going to work, but I will. I am still coughing quite a bit, which frustrates me because it makes it difficult to sing and make music. I am not entirely sure what I am going to do with my students this week. Last week's strategies will not work because we had a day off this week (darn Monday holidays). At the same time, having a week of country of the month videos would be good for my breathing and cough situation. I will probably just do the country of the month videos so I can rest a bit more. I finished the presentations fo...

It is Saturday. This is my favorite day of the week these days because it is the one day that I devote entirely to my "other than my primary job" pursuits. I have a list of things that I have to get finished before the end of the weekend, so I am working on tasks as I can. I haven't been able to check off anything except for computer-centric tasks so far, but I have many other things to do. One of the things that I do every other Saturday is a bit of peer supervision. It is nice to talk to a fellow music therapist about small business and internship stuff. So, we meet together every other week to talk about what is going on in our lives. That's on the to-do list. Other things are clearing my crafting space so I can host a symposium in two weeks without showing everyone my messy work space. I need to make food to eat this week - I already have hamburger cooked, so I am thinking about making a mass batch of chili and spaghetti sauce to eat on each night. I also have som...

Oh, dear. It is Friday, and I feel that the week went both fast and slow. Having less than usual numbers of sessions and students makes the week seem unfinished somehow. We get to do that again on the week of 19th for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. That type of schedule is difficult to navigate, especially when you are a creature of habit like me. So, it is now the end of my four-day work week. I have two groups and an individual on the schedule today. That's it. The rest of the time that I am at work needs to be productive, but I have not been actually productive lately. So, I will be using my 30 minutes of work with 30 minutes of something else. I am in between visual aid projects at the moment, so I really don't have anything sitting there waiting to be worked on. I guess one of my work tasks should be to print out more visual aids to work on in the next 22 weeks. Meanwhile, back here at home, things are just piling up around here. My Christmas boxes arrived on Monday, and I h...

Complain, complain, complain. I am sitting here, trying to remember what day it is. I have this issue when I am on breaks because there are no outside pressures, but I REALLY have this issue when I find my typical daily schedule interrupted - like with a Monday at work without music therapy sessions. I am at odds with my expectations, mainly because I didn't have as many sessions as I have on my schedule. It is Thursday, right? This means that I have my Tuesday groups again and my Monday groups are finished for the week. Everything is a bit discombobulated in my brain, so I am having to remind myself over and over that this is the way it is this week, not next week, but will replicate the week after when we have Monday off for MLK, Jr. Day. I don't like having Mondays off or away from students. It just messes with my mind too much. Things are going well with other tasks. I have felt pretty good about my upcoming events as well as my own quests for musictherapyworks.com. I have ...

Let's talk about music therapy with adolescent clients on Saturday, January 24, 2026 - Three CMTEs for $30 USD. Topics include age and developmental considerations, the ethics of music censoring, and a group discussion about things we can do with our clients! Get ideas for therapeutic interventions to take back with you and use on Monday! More details here: http://www.musictherapyworks.com/morethanlyricanalysis.html Have you seen this graphic on music therapy social media feeds? I really hope so. I am getting ready to start this symposium for the music therapy community who, like me, work with adolescents and find little to no resources available. Let's work together to make this happen!! I hope that you will join me for this discussion in (gulp) 17 days!

Here we go. It is the first day of the second semester of the 2025-2026 school year - AKA, my last semester as a school-based therapist (as far as I know right now). I have five groups today - none of which are the same as the groups that I had on Tuesdays just two weeks ago. I have a vague idea of what I want to do with them (I have to laminate some resources that one student in particular will wrinkle immediately), but nothing is set in stone. I was anything but efficient yesterday. I did put some stuff into my car, but it is still sitting there, waiting for my attention. I received my Christmas boxes yesterday, so all of that stuff is scattered around my living room where I am currently storing the stuff I am bringing home from work, so things are getting to my overload state. Once I am finished with this post, I am heading upstairs to take a shower, get some water, and try my best to figure out what I am going to do with almost all of my students this week. I know what I am doing n...