music, therapy, and me

I have an arbitrary rule for myself and my storage space. It is not something that I based on anything other than my tendency to collect things and head towards hoarding, ESPECIALLY with music things, but it has been handy in the 27 years that I've been a professional music therapist. Six things to do before buying/keeping/storing. Simply put, this means that I have to come up with six goals or therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) in which I use the material in order to keep it in my storage space. Since this is my guideline, I strive to make things that can be used in many different ways so I can justify keeping them. Here's how this goes... I see something new, and I start to think - "Can I afford this?" "Do I want it because I just want it?" "Can I think of six things to do with this thing to justify buying it?" The questions start to come fast and furious... What is it? Would it be something I could use in my current music therapy job? (If the ...

I think I may be officially sick now. I am dreaming, remembering my dreams, and dreaming about putting together file folder activities for my clients. These things don't happen usually - most of the time, I don't remember my dreams at all - but the topic of my dreams doesn't really surprise me. I've been thinking about file folders lots and lots, and apparently my brain continues to think about them while I am sleeping. This is my last official day of break (I've never counted weekends as vacation time), and I have made some progress towards my goals. Specifically, I can now walk from point A to point B on vacuumed carpet. Things are not put all away, but I have made progress there as well. My mother may be coming for a visit, so my cleaning and clearing will be accelerated if she does indeed brave the wilds of Kansas in August. I will need a place for her to sleep, so things will have to leave. I also accomplished lots of professional goals this past week. I st...

This is a new, occasional series for this blog - Six Things. You know my rule about having six separate therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) for the materials that I keep in my clinic? This is what it looks like for me. I recently purchased four sets of animal Easter eggs at the Dollar Tree. They are cute and small and offer eight different animals to use in music therapy sessions. I thought they were absolutely adorable and well worth the $4 I paid for the 4 bags of eggs. The problem is that I really don't have space to store 40 Easter eggs, even if they are about two inches by one inch each, unless I can justify their use more than once per year. Fortunately, I can come up with lots of things to do with these eggs in order to justify their presence in my music therapy clinic storage space. I just have to write everything down so I'll remember that I have these materials and so I'll use them! I sit down with one of my favorite brainstorming tools - a 4X6 inch index c...