music, therapy, and me

During my trip back to the East Coast with my Mom, I did something that I have not done for 3 months (the anniversary was yesterday) - I sang with other people. I have been surprisingly quiet since my days have gone from singing all day, everyday with all my clients to being at my home, just doing what I wanted to do. I have not been making much music in my own company, mainly because music is something I share with others now. We sang one hymn. I sat next to my mother and sang the soprano part of Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.  Her alto voice and my voice compliment each other in ways that only voices that have sung together for many decades can do. We sang this familiar hymn in the company of residents of the retirement community that my Mom's best friend, Aunt Mary, lives in and seems to manage many different parts of the community. She organizes the weekly worship service as well as runs the gift store and is involved in a personalized playlist program with persons with me...

There is much fun to be had today. My sister will be coming up after school, my best friend from elementary school (my last elementary school) will be stopping by on her way to a long weekend, and I am starting to get ready to go home after three weeks away. I intend to travel this weekend, so I am starting the process of organizing things and making room in my car for all the stuff I have accumulated. There's isn't much, but there is more than what I arrived with, so things will have to shift a bit. This leaving and heading east comes with a promise that I will be returning permanently pretty soon. I don't know exactly when, but it will be sometime in 2027 that I move from my current home to a new place out here. I am looking forward to taking the road trip one last time between homes and driving in a leisurely manner from my home in my current state to this one. I do not usually do a leisurely drive when I am on these road trips, so taking my time next time is important t...

Boy, oh boy, it has been an interesting several weeks over here in my life. I have traveled over 4000 miles, spent time with family and friends that I have not seen for many years, had two job interviews (sorta), and am now waiting for my best friend from elementary and junior and high schools to blow through in a visit on their way to another destination before heading out into the world to go back to a place where I am retired and able to live on my pension - mostly. I am in a place where I do not know where my future lies - again. I am dithering as I try to figure out what to do next. I do not like this situation, so I am trying to hold onto some thoughts, but I am not sure how to do this right now. I am going to spend the next three days just trying to enjoy my current existence without thinking too much about the "what nexts" that are in my life at the moment. If I could only turn off my brain right now... To add to all the stuff happening, Meta One has now determined th...

Forgive me as I engage in some vague discussions about various topics that I do not want to publish... I have a decision to make about something going on in my life that will shunt me off into a direction different than the one that I have been envisioning lately. I have various and sundry things to think about, and I have to figure stuff out a bit in order to make this decision. When I am faced with critical decisions about my life and what I will be doing with said life, I have several systems that I use to make the entire process easier on me and my loved ones. Let's talk about those systems today... (I promise that this next paragraph will make sense - eventually. Just bear with me, okay??) I am a paper planner. I use my books in several ways - as a journal, as a calendar, as a task organizer. In the back of my books, I keep pages blank to use as needed for whatever else I need to work through. The books that I have currently are being used up as much as possible before I start...

I have a series of music therapy resources for music therapists out there that no one has ever really heard about - sing about songs . These collections are sometimes theme-based, sometimes released monthly, and sometimes just my collections of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs - AKA what I do in sessions with clients). I always write out procedures and provide sheet music for original songs or full source materials when using other music, and I think out all sorts of therapeutic functions for the music provided as well as for the clients engaged in the TME. These editions are labors of love - a passion project - for me, and I always feel a bit queasy when I talk about them, but I am finding that I need to get more comfortable with the idea of promoting my intellectual property to a target audience. sing about songs   is the fruit of my first thesis idea. I wanted to design a music-enhanced education resource for music therapists and non-music therapists, and I had it most of the...

The best thing about being on vacation for a long period of time is that I start to get new ideas and start feeling the itch to be back where I have all my stuff around me to accomplish those new ideas. (Does that make sense?? I am still jet-lagged and exhausted - Mom and I went to bed around 7pm last night.) I am getting to that point now, but I still have a week at my destination, so I have to write things down and defer them until later. A friend and I did some peer supervision on Saturday, and she mentioned that she was introducing the concept of instrument families to her clients. That started my brain, and now I am designing an instrument family edition of sing about songs . I could start the visuals here - I think all of the instrument clip art is in my cloud - and will probably end up doing that this week. I have all sorts of Zoom things happening this week - an interview, an I/DD support meeting, another for a discussion about music therapy influences and mentors. I have alrea...