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Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

Forgive me as I take one more day away from my scheduled themes to finish up my break chronicles and start getting back into a routine. It has been a long month, but I am back at my home right now and am thinking about the future very seriously. I drove 1,500 miles between Sunday morning and yesterday afternoon. I arrived at my home around 4:30pm after driving to Tucumcari, New Mexico on Sunday. I enjoy driving, and this trip was bittersweet because I think I will be making only one more of these trips, and it should be one-way. The trek from the Midwest to California on Interstate 40 is one that every person should make at least once in their lives. The scenery and history that is involved is absolutely mind-boggling, and the trip is pretty easy on the interstate. I enjoy seeing the scenery changes and experiencing different times of the day and the sunshine in the different regions of this country. Today's primary goal is to clear out the car. I have lots of electronic things and...
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'Tis the End: A Song I Should Write

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I am leaving home - probably for the last time - to travel across our country via car. I have significantly more stuff in my car than I did when I traveled towards this destination, and that is making me laugh. I have about five new toy xylophones to add to my collection of toy xylophones. I have a bag and a box of turn of the 20th century antique sheet music. I bought a cookbook, two books on lettering styles, and lots of fiction to add to my collection. My sister and my mother (AKA my enablers) gifted me with a set of colorful Lummi sticks (think smooth rhythm sticks that people use to make rhythmic patterns including tossing to one another. I am taking home all of my father's Echo dots (they creep my family out), a speaker set that I gifted to him before he died (never opened and made him cry), his robot vacuum (which also creeps Mom out but that I think she would love if she actually tried it), a new laptop (which my business bought when my Chromebook gave up the ghost), all so...
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Saturday - My Song Is Starting Again

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...
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Fun Friday: Friends Coming to Visit and Preparing For My Next Trip

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...
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Thoughtful Thursday: The Times, They Are A'Changing

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...
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Wednesday: Decision Making and Figuring Things Out

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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...
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TME Tuesday: sing about songs

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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...
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