music, therapy, and me

Next week, at this time, I will be up early and stressing about hosting my second ever Creativity Camp. This is a passion project of mine - something that I have long wanted to do and FINALLY have the time, energy, and motivation to pursue. Thank goodness for being able to retire with my full pension after 30 years of working as a full-time music therapist!! So, here comes Creativity Camp!! You may be wondering about this entire thing and why this is what I am doing right now, so here comes an explanation... Growing up, my family was comfortable. My mom was a stay-at-home mom until I was 11. My dad was a plant manager for several plastics companies in the 70s and 80s. We had stable housing and enough to eat, wear, and do. We were not rich, but we were stable.  As kids, we did not get everything that we wanted when we wanted it. We had less "things" than many of our friends, but again, our family was stable. Mom and Dad were together, and it was a safe upbringing. My mother wa...

It is 6:38 am, and there is a bird chirping loudly and repetitively outside my home. We had a thunderstorm this morning, so everything is wet and somewhat cool outside. There may be more storms in the near future, so I guess the bird is just communicating as much as possible before the next round shows up. I am feeling like I am being a slacker right now, not working, and trying my best not to engage in these feelings of uselessness and FOMO. I want to spend some time upstairs today, sorting through and cleaning up my stuff. I have storage items coming tomorrow to help with that process. I want to be able to walk around my upstairs without having to step over things. I also need to spend some time on marketing and printing out materials for Creativity Camp which will happen next weekend. I also need to take a shower and make my bed with clean sheets. Lots of things I need to do. We will see how much I actually get done today. Yesterday was spent mostly in napping. I worked a bit on one...

It is thundering this morning, and I am glad. I like storms as long as they don't come along with tornadoes, and this one seems to be just a regular storm. I am guessing that my mowers won't be coming today, but I will put their check on the door as usual, just in case.  I am experiencing some issues surrounding the fact that I am not at work while all my co-workers are working right now, but I am also enjoying my time alone. This changes from moment to moment. My life has changed significantly in the past two weeks. I no longer sing for adolescents. I sit at a computer and try to make things for music therapists to use and sing with their adolescents. I miss the human interaction, but not enough to consider going back. I felt a creative itch last night. I wanted to make something, but I had some decision fatigue and avoidance coming on, so I asked my mom and sister for some themes. I ended up being challenged to make a winter themed journal and a turtle themed journal. I put...

It is day 13 of my retirement journey, and I looked at job opportunities this morning. I didn't do anything other than look, but I was feeling the itch of "you're not doing anything." I am trying my best to not do much as far as employment goes for the next six weeks before looking seriously. The root of this itch is having to pay for tires yesterday (my car needs EXPENSIVE tires).  I didn't think about my former job until 3pm yesterday, but I woke up thinking about it all. I am curious about who is there now, but I don't want to be creepy about it all. I also am happy to be at home at the moment, but I want to also be around people doing something useful. It is strange being able to do what I want when I want. It is also strange to not be making music in the company of other humans right now. I have found that I am enjoying listening to music a bit more than I did before. I have put my stereo on CD rather than on my Kindle because trips do not take as much ti...

Recently, I have gone into a pattern of not writing ideas or songs down. This is great for my improvisational skills, but it is not great for my therapeutic music experience (TME) compendium. It is time to be a bit more intentional about my composition and TME development. If you have read any of my previous TME Tuesday posts, then you know that I have an organizational system for my ideas. I have a structure that really works well with my brain and my way of doing therapy. This system requires that I think through all sorts of musical and therapeutic elements to coordinate session strategies with specific clients. Now that I do not have clients, I have time to compose and write TMEs down again. My current focus is the two upcoming events through my company, musictherapyworks.com, LLC. One of them is a conference focused on working with adolescents and the other is a creative endeavour that includes making visuals for use in sessions with clients . These are both things that I enjoy c...

I spent most of the weekend getting things ready for my campers who are going to meet with me in a bit less than two weeks. It was a weekend tied to the computer, which is not always great, but it makes me think about how I create things for my clients. I hope that there will be some more folks sign up for camp, but the people who will be there will be fun to get to know. I am enjoying a bit of creativity when it comes to projects and how we will put things together. So, I have finished the lyric board, the game board pieces, the fill-in-the-blank songs, and the choice board. I still have the monster file to finish up before every project will be finished and ready to disseminate to my campers. OOOH! This is so much fun! This is something that I would LOVE to make an annual event. I did one of these back in 2015, and I wanted to do more, but life interfered. So, now that I have the time, I will work on making Creativity Camp a place where all music therapists can get together to make t...

It is Sunday again, and I am sitting here at my computer, trying my best to be interested in anything that I have to do today. I have slipped into a strange emotion of not wanting to do anything but feeling like I have to do something. I have not left my house for most of the week, but the heat and humidity that hurts my lungs and body is abating, so I will go out today and tomorrow to do some things outside.  Anyway... It is Sunday which means it is time to find a song for analysis and therapeutic music experience (TME) development. I have not been listening to music much this week, so I really don't have a song at the ready. When this happens, I go to my music library and find something to look at. Today, I went to my iTunes account, scrolled to the count of sixteen (why sixteen? No clue, just felt right), and then clicked on the album icon. Disney's Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 . Twenty songs. So, I then asked a random number generator to tell me which song to focus on, and I was t...

So, I have been officially "retired" from my full-time job for a week. During this week, I have been focusing on Creativity Camp 2026 ( details here ). I am about halfway finished with the task analyses, but I have to get things figured out and sent to participants. There is still time to enroll in a bit of creative CMTE fun, if you'd like! I am not really feeling the reality of what I have chosen to do with my life right now, but I will pretty soon. I do know that I have lots of stuff to move through and move on, but I haven't even started that process yet. I have been living on microwaved meals because the kitchen is overwhelming me right now. I haven't cooked anything in a week. I have assembled meals from what is in my fridge. I am feeling pretty overwhelmed, but I have my file folders to escape to which helps. I have been taking naps, but I have been having bad dreams during those naps. The theme has been my home and things happening around my home. I have do...

Two years ago, the plan for this summer was to be going to Italy for the World Congress of Music Therapy. Those plans fell through, so the plan shifted a bit to a trip to the East Coast of this country to see my mother's family and friends, but those plans also fell through. So, the plan for this summer is to stay home and figure out home things for the moment. Rest. Reset the brain and the body to figure out what comes next. I am thankful that I am not having to go anywhere this month. While going to the World Congress would be nice, I am happy not to go. I find that music therapy conferences are more geared towards academics these days than clinicians. I am fully a clinician, so having to choose between this one's dissertation and this one's is not relevant to my role in the music therapy world. I am afraid that the professional organizations in the world are becoming too research-focused at the expense of those of us who are in the day-to-day process of actually doing th...

Oh dear. It is starting to blur - the day, the week, the time that I have to spend doing things. It is horribly hot here (for me, at least), so I have no desire to go outside for anything - no shopping no movie, nothing outside my home. The biggest problem?? I don't want to do anything inside my house, either, but I am doing that inside stuff very slowly right now. I made my decision about health insurance, and I used some of my savings to cover the cost right now. I have to go six weeks between paychecks right now, so I am budgeting very strictly at the moment. I have a month to do before I get my first pension payment, and I am still not sure what that payment is going to be. Today is my first official day without a teaching contract. I am finished with all things that were part of my old job, and the space, the clients, the position is someone else's. Strange thoughts and feelings right now, but something anticipated and invigorating as well. One of the things that I have ma...

It is Monday, and I have some maker stuff to talk about today. I actually made some things this weekend, so I can discuss them on this Make It Monday!! Hooray! Let's start off by talking about the new TPT (formerly known as Teachers Pay Teachers) file that I uploaded this weekend. I am getting ready to launch my first sing about  theme edition, and this file goes right along with it! Introducing Ocean Rhythm Cards ! I am excited about this resource because it provides me with a bunch of new therapeutic music experience (TME) ideas for use with clients in music therapy sessions. Since I do not have any current clients for music therapy, my brain is going to generic music therapy clients that I might work with in the future. I mean, I don't know who I will work with, but I want to share these ideas with those of you who are working with clients right now. These cards include twenty-seven pictures from Scrappin Doodles that include sea plants, animals, and humans in both color an...

So, I am in a season of change and metamorphosis. There is just no real way to define how I am feeling at this moment because it changes from moment to moment. As a result of the emotional rollercoaster that I am currently on, I am feeling the need for structure and boundaries and routines. So, I am going to be structuring my blogging a bit more than I have recently. Sundays will be for music sharing, thoughts, and therapeutic music experience development using songs that others have composed as well as shared with the world. The problem with this type of blog post is that I am often unsure what songs to use in posts like this. I try to select something that would work with a variety of populations, and I will strive to continue to highlight how you could use these pieces of music with everyone that you do music therapy with during your week of sessions. If you read this blog regularly (and I know that some of you do), then you know that I like having structure and templates are my thi...

I am exhausted. If you don't know (because you're new to this blog), I finished my job of 30 years two days ago, and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything that has happened in the past 72 hours. I was hugged by more people than usual, including the maintenance guy, on Thursday when I was saying goodbye to my clients and coworkers. For someone who does not hug much, it was lots for my body to endure, but hugs were important for others, so I did it! Yesterday, I was wide awake at 2am, and I could not get back to sleep. I have been having trouble both getting to sleep at night and sleeping for my usual 7 hours. Wide awake at 2am meant that I started to panic about everything that I have left behind and not knowing what is coming in the future. Ugh. I ended up going through a webinar and signing up for a continuing education business course by 5:30am. I also put together almost all of my information for the adolescent conference in August so I can submit the CBMT proposal an...

This is it. Today is the last time I commute 52 miles one way for a job that I have both loved and hated over the past 30 years. I have a handful of things to take with me this afternoon after I finish my last round of documentation and get my keys turned into the administrative assistant. I will be finished with this job in less than 10 hours from now, and I am terrified! I am in panic mode right now. I've quit my job, and I don't know what I will be doing as of tomorrow. I don't know if I will be able to do what I want with the money from my pension. In between panic slips (not attacks, but just moments of sheer terror), I am still doing music therapy groups. I am having to say goodbye to everyone who walks in, and that is rough for all of us. I have received several "I know you didn't want a gift, but..." gifts. Things that I will use and enjoy from now on. One last commute. Four more groups. Notes. Taking down my greeting pictures and getting my kleenex ho...

Today is my second to last day at work. So far, I have been given a homemade tote bag, a Michael's gift card, a t-shirt with the words to one of my goodbye songs, and a treble clef keychain. I have been giving out hugs this week since it is the last time I will see so many people. I am almost finished with my toting things home (I have to empty the car before I head out this morning), and the name of the therapist coming in is not the name that I've been preparing my students for during our termination talks. Oops, but that's what happens when information is not widely shared. Oh well... I have six sessions today and five tomorrow before I am officially done. I will be leaving my keys with the administrative assistant before coming home from work for the last time. It is bittersweet to be at this point in my life, but I am going to do my best to navigate my situation from a strong position on what I want from life and how I want to get to that level of existence. For now, t...

Hello, depression, my old nemesis. I see you've brought with you a double dose of allergy symptoms, just in time for a week of tears. I am significantly under normal when it comes to my temperature, and my head aches. I am not sure how much of this is due to leaving my job, my summertime blues, and/or the allergens present in the air. So much humidity tends to gunk up my lungs which makes breathing a challenge. So much happening right now that it is a bit surreal. Four more days. That's all. It is strange to think that I will not be going to work next week. I will no longer have a workplace. I will no longer be employed. My identity changes from fully employed music therapist to self-employed music therapist in four days. Boof. I have been experiencing anticipatory grief all year. This has been the plan for a couple of years now, but now it is here. I have one last session today and three tomorrow. After that, all sessions are last sessions. I am tired of telling people that my...

This is the first day of the last week at my current job. On Thursday, I will turn in my keys and head out into the world of uncertainty known as my first retirement. It is currently raining outside with rumors of severe storms on the way. I have tickets to see Disclosure Day  this morning, and I am hoping that the storm activity will not lead us to huddle in the lobby like I had to do during Avengers: Endgame . That was an interesting evening that ended up in a Tornado warning that wiped out houses and trees about a mile away from the theater.  Last night, I was unable to sleep, so I sat down and worked in my home planner/journal thing. It is hard to describe exactly what that book is to me, but it is where I keep track of all the things that I want to keep track of. Since the day of retiring is rapidly approaching, I am getting ready for what life will look like next week at this time. A couple of weeks ago, I set up the pages for the rest of the year. The planner will last ...

I am one exhausted introvert this morning. I spent four hours last night in the company of crafters and scrapbookers. It is always a good time that leads me to doing all sorts of creative things, but it is also tiring. I engaged in small talk conversation with a couple of other people last evening. The craft store owner seems to be an extravert, so she stops by everyone's table to comment on what we were doing. She complimented my coloring last evening. I find that particular type of interaction to be a bit fake, but it tickled my funny bone. I only lasted four hours, but I am heading back in about an hour to do some more stuff. I have the innards of several books ready to be put into currently nonexistent covers. I will take some floss and my bookbinding kit and the pieces that I need to make books for the signatures I put together. I looked for some inspiration for themes for the signatures that I put together, but I didn't find any. I will search a bit more here at home. I h...

After 30 summers of working an extended school year as a music therapist, I can tell you that the best part of having to work all summer is that my school has Fridays off! This was something that came from a need to keep school as part of the daily routine of our students and led to less time away from the classroom, but having three-day weekends all summer long has kept me going during the hot, humid, depressing summer months this entire time. This is my last three-day weekend during the summer. Next weekend will be my first time as a retiree. I am both ready and not ready at the same time. I feel like the Schrödinger's cat experiment is my life right now. My life is the cat in the box where there are possibilities that cannot be known, and people keep asking me for definitive answers about things. Answers that I cannot give because I don't know what the state of the cat is at any given moment. I wish I had more of a plan in place, but I am also needing to rest. I figure that ...