music, therapy, and me

Creativity Camp is finished, so it is time for my next projects! I tend to do this to myself, but I enjoy having several projects going at the same time. In addition to meetings and conferences, I have some written projects to produce. All of this as I try to figure out if I have enough ideas to sustain my life as a music therapy consultant with a small business. It has been almost a month since I retired from my full-time job as a music therapist in a psychiatric residential treatment facility school. I have not received my first pension payment yet - it is due to arrive in nine days - so, I am currently running my life on my savings. I am paying lots of money for my health insurance, and I am nervous about how I will survive financially during the next couple of months, but I am trying to sustain a new quiet life. One where I can create, interact, support, and benefit fellow music therapists from my home with a bit more freedom than my recent job offered. In 17 days, we will be gathe...

The second ever (and hopefully, the first annual) Creativity Camp by musictherapyworks.com is now finished!! I am exhausted, but I feel good about what we accomplished this weekend. I have a BUNCH of new projects that are finished that I was able to complete in the 8 hours we were together, and the pile is growing as I get more inspiration from the campers' projects. That is the best thing about doing creative professional development workshops with and for music therapists - the expansion of ideas based on a similar format. I have done this type of workshop at regional conferences twice now, and this was the second online version of making things that I have finished. I think this will become a yearly workshop that I run from here at home. I have TONS of ideas that I enjoy sharing as starting points, so why not?? Currently, all of the cleaning that I did in preparation is in shambles. One of the problems that happens when creating is that there are messes that occur. While all of ...

It is early on Sunday morning, and it is the second day of Creativity Camp. As with camping outside my home, I am feeling tired and excited about what is yet to come, but also my head is spinning with possibilities and my to-do list. As a result, I am going to send you to a previous post today - it will show the entire process that takes place in my head as I go through my TME development system. Thanks for understanding that there are times when repeats are a good thing. Here's the post that I am talking about - Have a great week! I'm back to camp!! 

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to go to camp. I went to day camp, overnight camp, science camp, Bible camp, sports camp, horse camp - you name it! There was something quite nice about leaving home to spend time outside. I was a camper, but where I REALLY loved camping was when I was a camp aide or counselor. I loved the summer that I spent in the Ozarks, being a camp counselor. I would still be doing that during summers if I hadn't become really sick and unable to return due to a lung fungus (sounds fun, doesn't it?? It wasn't!). Anyway, I have often wanted to work at a camp of some sorts, but music therapy came up and took over my professional goals. This is kinda where the impetus is behind today's Creativity Camp - my desire to be camping and also being around people. Creativity Camp is the type of camping that I like the best now - inside and not in the lung fungus inducing humidity! Today, I will be meeting with some music therapists to make ...

This weekend is my second ever Creativity Camp designed to challenge my fellow music therapists to design and use visual aids to supplement client goals. This is a passion project for me - something that I have dreamed about for many years, tried out once, and now have the time to focus on more and more. So, I am trying this again - the second ever Creativity Camp by musictherapyworks.com! The best part about this camp is that it is something I can do here from my own home. No bugs. No heat emergencies (I'm prone). No humidity that just does not go away. I am looking forward to this weekend, but camp is not the only thing that I am creating these days. I have found several completed projects and other unfinished projects. Finding things that I have started spurs my creative impulses and makes me think about how to finish these projects and send them out into the world. I have some resources that were designed by others - mostly files from TPT - that I have songs to add to the visua...

My sister, a second grade teacher currently on summer break, is a great resource for all sorts of things. Currently, she is helping me come up with ideas for my upcoming Creativity Camp session. Her brain works from a different perspective than mine because she has different life experiences than I do. Her experiences at professional conferences is vastly different from mine. There are so many more education professionals, so their conferences are vast compared to our music therapy conferences. She has left conferences with iPods and enough dry erase boards to cover her bulletin boards. Her experience with what can happen at conferences or professional gatherings is different from my own, so her perspectives are valuable to me and challenge me to do things better than my experiences. I completed all of my projects, an errand to switch my retirement accounts over to a new IRA, and received my car registration in the mail. I still need to uncover my desk and get things ready for camp on ...