Time to Go Back to the Routine of Work

As far as I can tell, today is a regular work day for me as a school-based music therapist. I have checked and rechecked the closings list and it has remained at 55 schools closed for quite some time now. It is doubtful that my school district will close at this late time in the morning - not unprecedented, but doubtful. I tried to go out and do some errands on Tuesday and found the world to be a slick, electricity-free mess, but yesterday was a bit warmer (seriously! We got up to 22 degrees Fahrenheit with full power in my town), so things should be a bit more controlled and less scary out there today. I am enjoying the last little bit of my relaxed morning (been up for 3 hours already at 5:00am) before changing into my winter uniform and heading to work. I am anticipating that my current intern will be asking about whether we are going to be working - I think I'll send an email right now while I am thinking about it.

Today is an easy scheduled day but it will be the first day that our clients will be in new classes with new peers and new staff members - all across the school. This will be an interesting couple of weeks as we find our new pecking orders in all areas. I am not a big fan of the "let's shock everyone all at the same time" way of managing a school, but I don't get a say in how things are run. I just have to deal with the aftermath of the decisions of others. So, my music therapy strategies for today and tomorrow are to just expend some energy and work a bit on team building for our staff members and students.

I have some go-to strategies for times like these. Most of them include music games, throwing things, some improvisation on instruments, and things that incorporate as much movement as possible to wear out bodies and help minds start to engage without motor distractions. I have two very different groups to lead today, and that will help me get back into the swing of things. Same with tomorrow - two different groups. That's one of the best things about my job - I get to work with students of all ages and interests and areas of focus. I like that challenge.

After my two groups this morning, my intern will lead one group. We will do some supervision since we missed it on Monday due to the holiday, and then I will finish my day with bus duty. Since students are back to being mixed up with all the other students, we are going back to the way things "used to be done" during bus duty. Specifically, this means that I monitor students waiting for their buses at their bus signs while we wait for those buses to arrive. After bus duty, I hope to do some music therapy reading, and then I get to go to do my taxes. I decided to get some outside help with those things this year since we have additional things to consider - stimulus payments being one of those things. I have already rescheduled this appointment once, so I need to remember to go this evening.

That will be the entirety of my day. Blogging, work, taxes, home. Not too bad. Once I am at home, I plan on trying to do some crocheting (we'll see how the fingers work) while watching mindless television. I also need to respond to my realtor person about scheduling a phone call. That's it. That's all that will happen from now until tomorrow morning when I sit down to write again.

Time to get dressed and head out into the (not as) cold morning.