Thursday: The Calm Before the Storm

It is horribly hot in the room where I am staying right now, but that's pretty much the way things go at the moment. There is no place that is cool in this region, so I am just sitting in front of a fan while doing my morning routine. I bet my mother will not emerge for another four hours, so this is my alone time.

It is quiet at the moment.

I enjoy my quiet time in this house. I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to entertain myself when I am visiting this place. I am going to be moving around to different places in the next week, so this is good practice for being a pleasant house guest.

Meanwhile, I am sitting here in the midst of my mother's paper crafting supplies and tools. I come by my hoarding tendencies due to nature and nurture. My grandmother (Mom's Mom) was also a collector of art materials and teaching stuff, so both my Mom and I have been shaped into the packrats we are. I am going to play with paper while I am here - Mom will never miss the stuff that I am going to use, and there are so many options for pretty stuff just sitting in front of me.

The best thing about having family that thrift shops and collects things that I collect is that I often get the duplicates that come around. I am hoping that the die that is on the bed will be a duplicate that I can take back with me. It has four different circle sizes, and those are handy for decoration and making visual aids. I often get the extra things that Mom and Sis find - which I enjoy! My sister found me a Fisher-Price record player with records that I will add to my electronic toys and use with new clients - eventually.

Speaking of which, I am working on a business plan and looking for resources to help fund a new clinical practice in this area. I am not sure that I will be able to afford a new practice, but that is the dream.

So, I am going to spend some time this month working on my business plan and finding as much information as possible to help me start things up. It is time to take this next leap, so I have to do it.

I am working through things that I have available to me. I am working on identifying what I want to do as a music therapist in my next role. Here's what I know now:

  • I want to work with persons who are underserved. For me, this primarily means people who have aged out of the school system, are difficult to manage due to behavior or emotional concerns, or who deserve musical enrichment and opportunities for leisure skill practice.
  • I want a place to do this. I am going to be looking for a clinic of some sort.
  • I need to be close to my family members, but I cannot afford to live near them. That's okay as it is easier for us to get along when we have some distance. Fortunately, any place is pretty close in this area, so I could be within an hour's drive without any difficulty. I would just have to get used to being in traffic jams again.
  • I need mentors to help me with this process. So, I am going to be looking for help from the music therapy community as well as from business folks.
  • I want to continue to be a music therapist, but I also want to continue to work on product development and continuing education for music therapists. So, I will have two business interests.
So many things to do when starting up something. I am thankful for this quiet time so I can think and move into my next iteration. This is not something that I am going to take for granted. I hope that I can figure out something in the quiet time that I will have before me.

This next week is going to be full of hotels and car rentals and visiting with others and being polite and eating food that I haven't prepared and all sorts of things that will interrupt my existence in ways that I haven't anticipated. After that, I will start looking into properties and options for what happens next.

I have some junk mail that is getting sent to my mother's house, for some strange reason. I am going to make a junk journal out of the materials and fill it with things from Mom's paper room. Seems like a creative use of my time, so why not? It will help me fill the time before she wakes up each morning. Time to work on the next part of these projects, and making something with paper helps me think things through.

Happy day, everyone!

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