music, therapy, and me

Oh, dear. It is Friday, and I feel that the week went both fast and slow. Having less than usual numbers of sessions and students makes the week seem unfinished somehow. We get to do that again on the week of 19th for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. That type of schedule is difficult to navigate, especially when you are a creature of habit like me. So, it is now the end of my four-day work week. I have two groups and an individual on the schedule today. That's it. The rest of the time that I am at work needs to be productive, but I have not been actually productive lately. So, I will be using my 30 minutes of work with 30 minutes of something else. I am in between visual aid projects at the moment, so I really don't have anything sitting there waiting to be worked on. I guess one of my work tasks should be to print out more visual aids to work on in the next 22 weeks. Meanwhile, back here at home, things are just piling up around here. My Christmas boxes arrived on Monday, and I h...

Complain, complain, complain. I am sitting here, trying to remember what day it is. I have this issue when I am on breaks because there are no outside pressures, but I REALLY have this issue when I find my typical daily schedule interrupted - like with a Monday at work without music therapy sessions. I am at odds with my expectations, mainly because I didn't have as many sessions as I have on my schedule. It is Thursday, right? This means that I have my Tuesday groups again and my Monday groups are finished for the week. Everything is a bit discombobulated in my brain, so I am having to remind myself over and over that this is the way it is this week, not next week, but will replicate the week after when we have Monday off for MLK, Jr. Day. I don't like having Mondays off or away from students. It just messes with my mind too much. Things are going well with other tasks. I have felt pretty good about my upcoming events as well as my own quests for musictherapyworks.com. I have ...

Let's talk about music therapy with adolescent clients on Saturday, January 24, 2026 - Three CMTEs for $30 USD. Topics include age and developmental considerations, the ethics of music censoring, and a group discussion about things we can do with our clients! Get ideas for therapeutic interventions to take back with you and use on Monday! More details here: http://www.musictherapyworks.com/morethanlyricanalysis.html Have you seen this graphic on music therapy social media feeds? I really hope so. I am getting ready to start this symposium for the music therapy community who, like me, work with adolescents and find little to no resources available. Let's work together to make this happen!! I hope that you will join me for this discussion in (gulp) 17 days!

Here we go. It is the first day of the second semester of the 2025-2026 school year - AKA, my last semester as a school-based therapist (as far as I know right now). I have five groups today - none of which are the same as the groups that I had on Tuesdays just two weeks ago. I have a vague idea of what I want to do with them (I have to laminate some resources that one student in particular will wrinkle immediately), but nothing is set in stone. I was anything but efficient yesterday. I did put some stuff into my car, but it is still sitting there, waiting for my attention. I received my Christmas boxes yesterday, so all of that stuff is scattered around my living room where I am currently storing the stuff I am bringing home from work, so things are getting to my overload state. Once I am finished with this post, I am heading upstairs to take a shower, get some water, and try my best to figure out what I am going to do with almost all of my students this week. I know what I am doing n...

Hello from my desk at home. I am currently about 90 minutes away from heading out to work for the first time this year. I am in denial about having to leave my home to go to work, but that's life. I have six months left at this job, so I am ready to get closer to my next transition, but I am also not ready for break to stop. This is my typical state of being at this point every year. Today will be a day without students - a professional development day where nothing has been revealed to any of us. I am anticipating a faculty meeting of some sort followed by some room time. I need to move out the crates of visual aids that I have collected and made over the past 30 years - there are many. Once those boxes are in my car, I will probably drive them around for a week before taking them out to the living room. That is currently the resting place for my work materials because I have not cleared the closet and rearranged the resource room. Should that be January's retirement quest? To...

For the first time in a long time, the new year has corresponded with the start of my new journal. I spent over a year in the last one, so this is somewhat of a surprise to me that I FINALLY filled the 200 page book and am getting to start another one. We will see how long this one lasts me before I can start another one, but there is something pretty fun and satisfying about transferring from one book to the next one. I am really taking my 2026 word of the year to heart right now. Metamorphosis is coming. I am heading towards a new phase of existence, and while it is a bit scary, it is also exhilarating. I am getting ready to become something else in my profession, and I am both excited and terrified of the transition! I took some steps towards my new existence on Friday by opening my business accounts with the seed money I have saved over the years. New accounts and a new bank. I have had a bill that will be covered by the business next year (I am hoping), and that is something that ...