music, therapy, and me

It is Friday again, and lots has happened to my loved ones this week that has affected me a bit. I am separated from the situations since I am far away, but I have engaged in phone support while waiting to hear if I will be called for jury duty here at home. As I wrote about yesterday, I am struggling with the change of routine that I have now. I am trying to figure out how I am going to work both here at home and outside of my home. One of the things that I want to get into doing is professional development on a daily basis. I am a member of Skillshare, so there are many courses available to me, but I have to actually open them up and do the work. I have also signed up for a consulting class that I need to start because my access goes away in four months, and it cost lots of money. I am trying to figure out how to get into the course right now because I only have four months left!! I am trying to get back into a routine that makes sense for me. This has been the most difficult part of...

I tend to live inside my head much of the time, and that habit is becoming stronger as I am spending more time by myself. I tried to get outside and around people yesterday, but my body had different ideas and forced me home after I finished dropping off my library books. I did not manage to get more, so I will work on my To Be Read (TBR) pile once I finish up the three library books that I have left. I have plenty of books to read, so I am never without some sort of reading to do, but I intended on getting more library books yesterday and was very distressed when I didn't finish that errand. Add to all that things happening away from me in my family, and I did not get much work done. I did finish an application for another CMTE opportunity, and then I sat and arranged my work notebook - this is a binder where I track my small business stuff. I put old CBMT information into one section and moved my current information to the upcoming events/ongoing projects tab. I need another set ...

I enjoy composing music. Most of my music is for clinical application, so the songs tend to be simplistic in nature rather than complex or orchestrated. I have lots of repetition, simple sentences, and goal orientations in my pieces, but I still love writing songs. There are times, though, when I am unable to get my brain going to compose things. This usually leads me into a bit of a spiral and causes more stress than I really need, but one of the good things about being a vintage music therapist is that I know several things will happen: Creative blocks happen. They will end when they end. It is okay to take a break from composing when the ideas seem forced. There are ways to compose things when your brain will not work the way you want it to. Not every song you compose has to be wonderful or even relevant. Sometimes, just getting a song out of you is the way to unblock your creativity. So, how do I get out of a composing block? I have several different ways to help me write songs whe...

It is Monday, and I am feeling my weekend. You wouldn't think that 13 hours of sitting and making things with paper would wreak havoc on a body, but it does. Also, the change in medication regimen has something to do with this, I am sure. I crashed hard this morning and did not want to get up at all. I have also not been eating well, so there are lots of things happening, but this weekend just coalesced everything into one big energy reset. Boy, I am just one big complaint this morning. Time to reset. I enjoyed my time making things with paper this weekend. I worked on my themed journals on Friday evening, and I putzed around with brainstorming as well as some other paper projects and Zentangling on Saturday. I made lots of plans on Saturday, and I have started to work through those projects.  I am working on passion projects right now. These are things that do not provide me with much financial benefit but that really make me feel satisfied. If I can get some financial support thr...

This was a pretty musical week for me. I went to see the movie of Hadestown on Monday, and Wait for Me has been in my head since. It was familiar to me when I heard it, but I am not sure how or why it felt so known to me. Now it is an earworm, and I am trying to exorcise it a bit. I spent yesterday at my paper craft crop working on upcoming projects. This was a good choice and a good environment for thinking about products that I want to make for my fellow music therapists. I kept finding new ideas when surrounded by my favorite things, and Jackie (the person who I craft with just by happenstance) was there being quietly supportive. She is very interested in my junk journals, and always asks about them, so it was nice to spend some time just in her company and in the company of new folks. I am starting to recognize faces at these weekends. Anyway... I now have 18 things on my to-do list for today, and I am hoping to put a dent in each of the tasks. Boy, oh boy, do I have plans. Th...

I am exhausted today. I spent so much time yesterday getting ready for the crop night, and then I was able to stay for 5 hours before having to leave. That meant that my medication schedule was messed with, so I finally got up at 7:45 after a brief time up to use the bathroom. I am still slow, and I am just trying to figure out what I am going to work on when I am at the crop later this morning. I am feeling like making file folders and games is a good use of my time today. That, of course, means an entire different type of materials to lug to the store. I brought half of the things that I used last night back home with me, so I can switch things out pretty easily. I figured out the name of my crop buddy - Jackie! She was prepping some more paper dolls to color (which I LOVE watching), and we crafted in comfortable silence. I am also seeing other familiar faces which is great. I signed up for two of the next three crops - I'm skipping September so I can go on a trip at some point d...

Tonight there will be two things happening in my life - a crop night and checking to see if I report for jury duty on Monday or if I have to wait until another time in the next two weeks. If you are not part of the paper crafting community, first of all, I'm sorry because this is a community that I am working on being a part of in my current town. I write lots about making books and decorating books and doing paper crafts because these things are how I relax in ways that are not music related. So, getting a chance to play with paper is one way I indulge in self care, and the opportunity starts tonight! I am starting to get to know people in this community which makes me feel pretty happy. There is one woman who is quiet, much like me, comes alone, just like me, and who colors the most amazing paperdolls. In the last crop weekend, she coordinated color theory cards to use during an event about 4 hours away. I have spent time crafting next to her, and she brought me two pads of paper...

The regular school year at my facility apparently has started this week. I received a message from a former coworker who expressed that she missed me, and that message both made me happy and sad at the same time. I have left a position that I owned for 30 years. Of course the next person is not me. Things are different, and that is not a bad thing. It's a good thing to mix things up in the music therapy room every so often. That is one of the reasons that I enjoyed having interns around. I got a glimpse of what other therapists could do with my clients that was different from my own thoughts. I also was able to see when my clients performed as I believed they would in certain therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). It was a luxury to work with other music therapists in my program - one where I had been a consistent element in the facility and school longer than any of my coworkers. The next person has had three weeks of work time so far. Most of that time would have been taken up wit...

Anyone else feeling restless on this meteor shower, new moon, some people get to see an eclipse but not me, and planetary alignment day? Usually at this time of year, I am starting a new school year, and I have new quests and things to do. I would be getting into my schedule of music therapy sessions and getting to know my new clients while adjusting to not having other clients still at the facility. I would be going through professional development completely irrelevant to my job as music therapist. I would be lamenting the lack of time available to just work in my room, but once I got that time, I would fritter it away. The students would arrive, and things would proceed as usual. This year, I am no longer working at a school as a music therapist. I stay at my home and try to do things that I have always wanted to do but never had enough time to get finished. I am trying to figure out working on projects to generate some income, but I am not always good at self-motivation, so my work...

I did not sleep well last night. These nights of staying awake are becoming more prevalent in my life which is interesting to me. I am more likely to stay awake than I am to go to sleep these days, possibly because my energy output is less than it was when I went to work every day. My life is quiet now, and it is spent mostly in my own company. I am starting to feel an itch to get a job, not just for financial reasons but also for having something to do with myself. There is a reason for this first paragraph - while I was not sleeping, I kept working on my Game Board and first set of game cards. I now have two games in the design phase. The cards are finished, the game board arrangement is ready, and now I just need to make everything into a digital format for posting on TPT. After that is finished, I will print out copies and make the games for a video that I am thinking about. The games that I am designing are based on my usual games. They will use game cards and dice to move around ...

Most of this weekend was consumed with running my first ever solo conference, Rhythm to Results: Clinical Innovations for Music Therapy with Adolescents, but I also had an email from someone who was watching my Creativity Camp videos and wanted some thoughts. That started my own creativity going, and now I have some things to start generating for my TPT store and my Etsy shop! I love it when collaboration with other music therapists helps me figure out what to do next. The project that I have in front of me now is something that can be sustained almost indefinitely. I am looking forward to parsing the project, setting up templates, and then getting going on this project. I will be asking for ideas once I finish my own list, so stay tuned!  My book needs some love. Time to project plan the new ideas and continue to work on my current projects. I am going to see Hadestown, the musical movie, this morning, so I cannot spend all of my morning at my desk. That's a good thing. My sister ...

In about four hours, I will be starting the first ever Rhythm to Results conference with the goal of building a music therapy community for those of us who work with adolescents. This is the culmination and starting point of a dream of mine - something that I have wanted for a very long time - and I am excited about it. I am also very nervous. I hope that I can coordinate this project for a very long time to come. Since I am going to be in front of a computer for 8 hours today, I think I will sign off. See you later...

Today is the day before one of the biggest things I have attempted solo in my small business journey - the day before a brand new conference! To say that I am thrilled, terrified, and absolutely counting on this experience becoming something that I just do from now on is an understatement. I am hoping that things will go off without a hitch, but I have contingency plans -- just in case! If this was a physical conference where we were going to sit in the same room and do things, then there would be many more things to coordinate, but this is an online conference so there isn't that much to do before things get started tomorrow morning. That is the benefit of doing online conferences, most of the work is done before the conference starts and then you go into monitoring mode. This will be the first conference where I am acting without a group helping out. That is a bit concerning, but like I said, I have contingency plans. This is where being part of the Online Conference for Music Th...

I have been a professional music therapist, board certified, for 33 years now, so I feel like I have earned the title "Vintage Music Therapist." Having a bit of perspective that comes with being something and somewhere in a profession leads me to spend time thinking about all things music, therapy, and me. I spend lots of time thinking about music therapists and clinical interactions with the clients who come before us all. I am also part of many music therapy social media groups, threads, and what have you, so I see all sorts of things that happen in the clinical world outside of my own experience. One of the biggest difficulties with our profession at this time is one that has challenged us forever. It is the mismatch between where music therapists want to exist and where jobs are available. For many years, I have told interns that there are jobs available in this field, but those jobs are not always exactly where the interns want to be located. Professionals either have to...

Ah. Today is deadline day, and I did NOT do any composing yesterday. My self-imposed deadline is gonna whoosh on by me unless I get going on it!  That's the problem with having no outside influences working on my deadlines. The only person who knows that I want to release things on the 5th and the 22nd is me -- well, and now you. I picked these dates randomly so there is no reason why I have to stick to those calendar dates other than I like structure to my days and my life. There you go. So, since I did not do my composition work yesterday, it is waiting for me today. I did manage to complete my other priority tasks on my planner entry, but composition just did not occur. I did not just fritter my time away, however. I sorted my permanent markers and put them into color sets into bags. I am feeling good about getting some of my stuff rearranged and sorted. That has freed up a little bit of space down here, and I am looking forward to getting more space to move and relax. Don't...

I have to write several songs today. I have a self-imposed and totally arbitrary deadline of tomorrow for sing about october , and I have a couple of ideas that need songs to go with them. It is time to get to the keyboard and start to write songs. I have the rough ideas started already. I used my project book for brainstorming and came up with several new ideas for the month. Now it is time to put the finishing touches on the edition and release it out into the world. This is the part of being a music therapist that I love the best right now - writing songs and finding things to do with those songs that support typical goals and objectives of clients from all sorts of populations! There is something really satisfying about writing music for clinical application that just fills my cup. I will grab my songwriting kit (more about that kit here ) because my composition process always starts by writing songs using a pencil and paper of some sort. I will sit down with the keyboard and just ...

This weekend was mostly spent in bed, but I did accomplish a weekend challenge from one of my Facebook groups. Every weekend, one of the group members posts a challenge for us to create. This weekend's challenge was a Christmas-themed challenge, and I decided to participate. We had to figure out something with paper that included the following: envelopes, Santa, a holiday saying, glitter (nope for me), and lace. We could replace one of the elements with a button, so I took out the glitter part because I am hopeless with glitter. Here is what I created...  This is an envelope that I made out of cardstock. I covered all of the flaps with scrapbook paper, added some paper lace die-cuts, a picture of Santa, and a holiday sentiment. It is a fancy gift card holder that I will give to our family friend, Mary, this Christmas. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. The entire thing folds into the envelope shape and is held together by the string which wraps around the button on the front...

Sunday comes around about every seven days, and here it is again. I didn't write last Sunday - I don't remember why - so I am here for this week's version of Just a Song Sunday , and I think I have a good topic today... For as long as I have had the means to do so, I have made playlists. Now, when I started, it was taping the radio onto a cassette tape, but now I can curate playlists from various sources to match every mood that I bring and that represents every client that comes to music therapy. It is an ongoing project, to be sure, but it is wonderful to have all sorts of songs at my literal fingertips. The power contained in playlists is not something that should be underestimated. In fact, one of my music therapy heroes (total fangirl here!), Jennifer Buchanan, has a book all about the power of playlists. It's called Wellness, Well Played: The Power of a Playlist  and discusses how playlists enhance our lives. I love Jennifer - she is a dynamic music therapist from...

It's the beginning of the month which means little around here except that it is time to get my month in order. If you are familiar with my blog and way of doing things, then you know that I am a pen and paper person rather than a digital calendar person. I have been using an agenda or planner for most of my life, and I enjoy the routine of writing things down. I have two planners that I design and use on a regular basis. The first is my personal planner. I keep track of chores, appointments, celebrations, and all sorts of stuff in that calendar. My current personal planner is a red covered dot grid journal that I bought from Michaels when they had a buy one, get one sale. I tend to stock up on blank books when those types of sales happen. I have a set pattern for setting up this planner - one week per spread with limited changes to the format. My second journal is my work planner. This is the one that has changed the most recently because my work has shifted from an out-of-home jo...

Friday has come around again, and the first pension payment is sitting in my bank account which is nice because I was terrified that it wouldn't arrive on time. Thankfully, it did, so I get a chance to pay my bills tomorrow without fearing an overdraft. It is amazing how much anxiety comes with money, so it is nice to have that particular fear dissipate this morning. It is Friday which means it is time for something fun - well, fun for me at least. I am trying to establish a routine for my tasks. I want Fridays to be fun as part of my regular routine. I want to do things that are joy-filled and that make me feel happy. For now, that means playing with paper and working on some challenge projects.  The challenge I have for this week includes using Santa Claus, lace, buttons, envelopes, and one more thing (I forget what) to make something. I don't know what I will end up making, but I will figure something out. In order to get this project going, I have to focus on the crafting p...