music, therapy, and me

It has been a LONG week! I spent most of the week at work, of course, and managed to make it through an entire week without crashing (well, until now!). I saw all of my groups and went to all of my places according to my schedule. Last week I inadvertently changed my schedule for two of my groups, and NO ONE said anything. By the time I figured out what I had done, another person changed her schedule to accommodate mine - I apologized to her once I knew what was going on. I have lost more things than I have found this week, and I really am getting a bit disgusted with myself. I set something down, turn around, turn back around, and it is GONE. So far I have lost my cell phone (found, thank goodness), my lunch bag, three flashlights, and my constellation cups. I think I lost my brain around Wednesday. If you see it, would you please send it home?? I miss it! It is a great turn of events to report that work is the least of my concerns right now. What a great sensation!! I am star...

I have tried and tried to write blog posts lately and have found that most of my posts end up in rants. Now, I hate it when I can only see the negative sides of things, so this post is a Thankful post - the rules? I have to see positive sides of every situation going on. Here goes... I have a job that challenges me on a daily basis.  I have health insurance that pays for most of my medical care, even when they seem to want more and more money from me... My pet, Bella, purrs when I get home in the afternoon. My family loves me. I love my family. I have friends and acquaintances all over the world who stay involved in my life in a variety of ways. I am a strong, independent woman. My health is improving day by day, but I still need to remember that I am recovering from surgery and to rest when needed. There is much in my life to be thankful for, and I will attempt to remember this fact in every moment.   Today, I am going to try some new session formats with my s...

Today I ventured out to Walmart in the early hours of the morning to grocery shop and get some things for my new work spaces. One of the things that I really wanted to find was an oil drip pan. I saw some ideas about how to use an oil drip pan as a magnet board, and I wanted to try it out on my cart!   I found a drip pan tucked away near the oil treatment materials and loaded it up into my cart. It is very light, bends quite a bit, and makes some interesting noises as you go over bumps. It is shiny and is currently in the back of my car awaiting the trip to the music therapy storage closet. Here is a picture of an oil pan that I found on Pinterest:http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/d8/90/7d/d8907d14d1e a775af4d6439cd5b 1a89a.jpg This example is attached to a door, but I'm not going to do that in the music therapy area - I'm going to add magnets to the back and stick it to the metal cart that I have in the psychiatric residential treatment facility storage area. I ...

I'm at home today after two days of working with kids. This post-surgery life is new to me - exhaustion has set in and is just kicking my behind! As I am sitting here, eating my breakfast of spaghetti and meatballs, I am starting to think about various and sundry things about music therapy. Last night, I participated in a conference call with lots of folks that I really respect in the world of music therapy. It was interesting to be part of the conversation about this and that. I enjoy talking to other music therapists about music therapy - interns, professionals, folks older or younger than me, students, folks who practice a different music therapy philosophy than me - all therapists are interesting to me. It fascinates me that we have so many ways of thinking about the same thing - the use of music as a therapeutic medium. Yesterday was a good therapy day (even though it exhausted me physically!!). I spent my day working with some of the residents at my facility. Now, all o...

Oh, the joys of living a life two weeks after abdominal surgery! I was doing pretty well until lunchtime today. I almost dropped a glass bowl of noodles on the ground. When I went to catch the noodles, I pulled something around my suture site. Blech. I am carefully monitoring my temperature, the area (just in case it swells), and my movements so I will know if I need to go to the doctor again. Here I thought I was doing so very well! I went back to work yesterday for our first work day since Fall Break. I welcomed intern #21 to my facility, and tried to figure out how to use my computer (no internet, no server, no chance to use any of my jump drives...). I spent lots of time trying to remember the Internship Handbook and eventually gave up. Poor intern #21! Monday is a typical inservice day. We will be sitting and listening to folks drone on and on about OSHA requirements (two years ago we heard about how to construct buildings to the proper specifications - Something essential i...

Over the past two days, I have had to sit in my semi-functional apartment as plumbers have taken apart the main bathroom. Between the jack-hammering, concrete pouring, and tub-wrestling, it has been quite the noisy environment around here! In order to stay somewhat sane, I have been playing with file folders and bulletin board strips - just for fun! Now, usually I want everything in my music therapy clinic to be multifunctional and versatile. I generally try to keep things around me that I can do several things with in music therapy sessions. If the materials are not things that I can use at least six different ways, I don't keep it in my main therapy space. That's my general rule... These materials mainly break that rule all apart! Even as I say that, I am brainstorming different ways to use the materials that I have made. It is great to find my creativity again, and I hope that I'll be able to continue to create things now that my health seems to be fixed a bit. A...

School starts with its usual rigamarole on Friday, so I am trying to get back into the pattern of being a school therapist. I am not quite there yet, but I am trying. There aren't many things that I can do right now to prepare for school. Everything is up in the air and is due to change as soon as I walk into the building on Friday. The entire facility is doing things differently this year as we go through an entire school renovation. Classrooms are scattered around two different locations, all support services (including music therapy) are now cart-based rather than being room-based, and the schedule for individual sessions is null and void. Sheesh. Now we have an entire year to try things in ways we have never tried them before. There is a gaggle of people who are convinced that this entire year will be a horrible experience. They are not interested in solving problems - they feel more comfortable wallowing in how horrible things are and will be this year. When asked to meeti...

  Do you ever look back on a situation and wonder why you waited so long to acknowledge the situation? I am recovering from the first major surgery and hospital stay in my life, and I am glad that it is over! I am also glad that the timeline for "fixing" me played out in the best possible way for us all. I am also grateful to the people in my life who told me that I needed to do something very difficult for me, "take advantage" of them. I went into my bowel resection surgery with lots of trepidation. I had anxiety moments filled with scenes where they could not keep me under the anesthesia (did not happen, though I did apparently try to slide off the operating table once), where I awoke with a total colostomy (also did not happen), and where I didn't wake up at all leaving my mother to coordinate my funeral, junk distribution, and cat care. Thankfully, none of that happened, and I am on the mend! This is a good thing as it allows me to deal with the addi...