Exhilaration of Plans Coming Together...

I set up another Zoom meeting this morning. This one is focused on music therapy students and is all about finding an internship for each one of those students. I have a week to coordinate it, but this is a topic that I have presented on for many years, so I feel confident that I can get this coordinated pretty quickly.

As I was putting this together, I realized that my website is pretty out-of-date, so revising that goes on the to-do list. This task joins several other tasks that I have neglected, so the list is growing and embiggening (word courtesy of Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess!) in leaps and bounds. Most of the things that I have on the list are things that I enjoy doing, so neglecting them is pretty silly. The only reason that I have not accomplished those things is because other things became a bit more important in the moment.

I spent some creative time yesterday putting together a digital kit for theme-based communication boards for music therapy sessions. My goal is to have a kit that I can customize based on the theme and the therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) available but that can also be changed quickly. I am almost finished with my prototype - I'll post pictures when I get that finished. I spent a couple of hours measuring and cutting things, making notes in my idea book, and then making boxes in PowerPoint to (eventually) print out and put on the folder. These files will end up being lapbooks which are configured a bit differently than regular file folder activities, but they still use one folder which is very convenient when you have lots of topics and want clients to be able to make as many choices and selections as possible. Today's project is to draw some icons to signify different types of TMEs. After that is finished, then I will put together the prototype and see what I want to adapt. After that, I'll make another one and write out a task analysis so that other people can replicate the process and make their own communication boards. Eventually I want a generic communication board lapbook thing. I need to think about how to accomplish that task which seems insurmountable but may happen with multiple pages...hmm.

I also decorated the first page in my first junk journal yesterday afternoon. If you are unsure what a junk journal is, then buckle down. I will educate you. If you know, then feel free to skip to the next paragraph... So, a junk journal is a book that is made up of things that you would usually consider junk. Mine is full of old scrapbooking paper, CD sleeves, envelopes from junk mailings, magazine pages, paper from investment prospectus mailings, and bags from the pharmacy. The point of it all is to take something that would otherwise be considered junk and then make it look interesting. 

I love making books, but I don't usually use them for anything. This one, though, is going to be a journal for me to use. So, I started on a page that had some interesting shoes on one side and a tobacco/cigarette ad on the other. I don't like the cigarette ads that are still in some magazines, so I started by covering that page first. I took some old puzzles from a puzzle magazine and some writing paper and made a collage on top of the cigarette ad so you can no longer tell what it used to be. Then I journaled a bit about my day and called it good. I took a picture of it for a SkillShare class that I am taking indicating that I finished the course, and put it away. That was the end of my creative impulses yesterday.

Today, I will create a bit on my digital file, hopefully make some sort of TME visual aid, and journal a bit as well, but I also need to get some of my other tasks finished.

I have to add my student-focused webinar to my calendar as well as monitor some of the email accounts that I haven't looked at lately. Before all of that, though, I have to shower, get ready to go to church, go to church, and then come home after church. I have chicken that I need to cook into a casserole and chicken stock that needs to be used for something. I have no idea how to use it, so some research has to happen to get that task accomplished but it will satisfy one of the goals that I have this month - cooking something from a recipe rather than just throwing things together.






 

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