music, therapy, and me

I am exhausted today. I spent so much time yesterday getting ready for the crop night, and then I was able to stay for 5 hours before having to leave. That meant that my medication schedule was messed with, so I finally got up at 7:45 after a brief time up to use the bathroom. I am still slow, and I am just trying to figure out what I am going to work on when I am at the crop later this morning. I am feeling like making file folders and games is a good use of my time today. That, of course, means an entire different type of materials to lug to the store. I brought half of the things that I used last night back home with me, so I can switch things out pretty easily. I figured out the name of my crop buddy - Jackie! She was prepping some more paper dolls to color (which I LOVE watching), and we crafted in comfortable silence. I am also seeing other familiar faces which is great. I signed up for two of the next three crops - I'm skipping September so I can go on a trip at some point d...

Tonight there will be two things happening in my life - a crop night and checking to see if I report for jury duty on Monday or if I have to wait until another time in the next two weeks. If you are not part of the paper crafting community, first of all, I'm sorry because this is a community that I am working on being a part of in my current town. I write lots about making books and decorating books and doing paper crafts because these things are how I relax in ways that are not music related. So, getting a chance to play with paper is one way I indulge in self care, and the opportunity starts tonight! I am starting to get to know people in this community which makes me feel pretty happy. There is one woman who is quiet, much like me, comes alone, just like me, and who colors the most amazing paperdolls. In the last crop weekend, she coordinated color theory cards to use during an event about 4 hours away. I have spent time crafting next to her, and she brought me two pads of paper...

The regular school year at my facility apparently has started this week. I received a message from a former coworker who expressed that she missed me, and that message both made me happy and sad at the same time. I have left a position that I owned for 30 years. Of course the next person is not me. Things are different, and that is not a bad thing. It's a good thing to mix things up in the music therapy room every so often. That is one of the reasons that I enjoyed having interns around. I got a glimpse of what other therapists could do with my clients that was different from my own thoughts. I also was able to see when my clients performed as I believed they would in certain therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). It was a luxury to work with other music therapists in my program - one where I had been a consistent element in the facility and school longer than any of my coworkers. The next person has had three weeks of work time so far. Most of that time would have been taken up wit...

Anyone else feeling restless on this meteor shower, new moon, some people get to see an eclipse but not me, and planetary alignment day? Usually at this time of year, I am starting a new school year, and I have new quests and things to do. I would be getting into my schedule of music therapy sessions and getting to know my new clients while adjusting to not having other clients still at the facility. I would be going through professional development completely irrelevant to my job as music therapist. I would be lamenting the lack of time available to just work in my room, but once I got that time, I would fritter it away. The students would arrive, and things would proceed as usual. This year, I am no longer working at a school as a music therapist. I stay at my home and try to do things that I have always wanted to do but never had enough time to get finished. I am trying to figure out working on projects to generate some income, but I am not always good at self-motivation, so my work...

I did not sleep well last night. These nights of staying awake are becoming more prevalent in my life which is interesting to me. I am more likely to stay awake than I am to go to sleep these days, possibly because my energy output is less than it was when I went to work every day. My life is quiet now, and it is spent mostly in my own company. I am starting to feel an itch to get a job, not just for financial reasons but also for having something to do with myself. There is a reason for this first paragraph - while I was not sleeping, I kept working on my Game Board and first set of game cards. I now have two games in the design phase. The cards are finished, the game board arrangement is ready, and now I just need to make everything into a digital format for posting on TPT. After that is finished, I will print out copies and make the games for a video that I am thinking about. The games that I am designing are based on my usual games. They will use game cards and dice to move around ...

Most of this weekend was consumed with running my first ever solo conference, Rhythm to Results: Clinical Innovations for Music Therapy with Adolescents, but I also had an email from someone who was watching my Creativity Camp videos and wanted some thoughts. That started my own creativity going, and now I have some things to start generating for my TPT store and my Etsy shop! I love it when collaboration with other music therapists helps me figure out what to do next. The project that I have in front of me now is something that can be sustained almost indefinitely. I am looking forward to parsing the project, setting up templates, and then getting going on this project. I will be asking for ideas once I finish my own list, so stay tuned!  My book needs some love. Time to project plan the new ideas and continue to work on my current projects. I am going to see Hadestown, the musical movie, this morning, so I cannot spend all of my morning at my desk. That's a good thing. My sister ...