music, therapy, and me

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...

It is raining outside and is supposed to rain most of today. After today, we will be heading back into a heat warning time for four days which means sticking around my home since I react strongly to the humidity. So, I have some time to do something by myself and in the relative quiet of my home. I currently have five unfinished journals sitting in various places around my craft/office space. I have some ideas of how to finish them, but I also see the piles of things that are around my home and feel the "you SHOULD [goblin] be cleaning" guilt pulling me away from those projects. I am getting better with actually moving things, but there is much to be done...still. It has been a month since I retired from my full-time job as a music therapist working in a psychiatric residential treatment facility and day school. I still have a month left on my self-imposed work break, and I am starting to panic about not having a steady job. I am looking at job announcements and am finding lo...

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...

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...

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 ...

Today is a day off, and other than some online shopping with my Mom and Sister later, I do not intend on leaving my house at all for any sort of consumer action. Black Friday deals are not for me! Instead, I am making small books for my co-workers that share the music therapy space at work. One is a recipe book and the other is a future adventures book. I hope they will like them, and it will give me a chance to explore my creativity through making something that I love to make - small journals and books. One of the things that has really sustained my music therapy professional journey is cultivating hobbies that are not related to music at all!  I love making journals, and I make them out of all sorts of things. Right now, I am in the design phase of my thinking about all of this. I have to figure out how to make a recipe book. It will be easier to set up the future adventures book, but there are other considerations for that book than the recipe book. It will be a good challenge!...

I get to escape to my happy place today and finish up a whole bunch of file folder activities for one of our teachers. I ran out of Velcro on Wednesday evening, so I couldn't finish then, but I have replenished my stash and am ready to go! This is truly something that I enjoy. I like taking paper and turning it into activities of various kinds. My joy comes in the making of such things. I tend to get a bit distressed when I watch people using those things that I have crafted with my hands. So, it is easier for me to make multiple copies and send them out into the world rather than make things for my clients to use. That's where the Pristine Folder comes in. For every project that I make for my music therapy sessions, I make one that lives within a filing cabinet. It does not get touched by hands other than mine because I can take it when folders are ripped or crumpled knowing that there is one that is picture perfect - Pinterest Perfect - safely tucked away. With the folders I ...

Fun Friday. When I get to work today, I have to do documentation for the last three days as well as for the two groups that I will see today. That's the only task that has to get finished - well, other than the two groups that are on my schedule. So, I have about seven hours of planning and preparation time. I still do not know what we are going to do in the four day week that happens next week. I will have that situation fixed by the time I leave work this afternoon. My office/storage space is still a mess from the end of May when I had to move my large instruments into my office to accommodate an office for some other people. (I'm still waiting for my supervisor to inform me of this fact...). There are drum set pieces and visual aid making materials everywhere. It is an absolute mess that I have little to no interest in doing anything about, but I need to. I will load up a backpack and one of my reusable grocery bags with things from my office and toy cabinet that do not need...

It is time for a little bit of fun. This is the first day of the last break before the start of the 25-26 school year. I, of course, have been on break since the beginning of this contract year due to the surgery that I had at the start of the last official break. I am not really all that excited about the start of the last summer break, but I am looking forward to another two weeks of being here on my own. I feel kinda guilty about having five weeks off, but I am also aware that I am recovering from major surgery, so the guilt sort of sloughs off. Anyway, today is Friday, so I want to focus on some fun. Lately, my source of fun has been library books. Aw long-time readers know, I have recently gone back to the library to support my reading habit. I have been reading lots of things in the recent weeks. I also made a large order from Thriftbooks.com for books for me rather than for my music therapy practice. Tomorrow, I will be going to a local craft store for an "Introduction to A...

Happy Friday and Day Two of World Music Therapy Week!! I was watching some early morning social media, especially some of the music therapy propaganda coming from Nordoff-Robbins (which I LOVE) about a girl who needs pervasive levels of support for all activities of daily living. Music therapy was a place where this girl was able to express aspects of her personality that were not easily accessible in other areas of her life. This reminded me of the students I used to work with who seemed similar to this girl. I realized how much I miss those students and the interactions that we had during their therapy sessions every week. Perhaps this is one of my pathways for the future?? Yesterday, I printed out some of the materials shared by the World Federation of Music Therapy and put them up on the wall by my music room. No one has mentioned them yet, and I wonder if they will. It was fun to share a little bit about what we do with the people around me who tend to take it for granted most of ...

I answered a strange survey this week about office use. I probably should have ignored it, but I was curious about what they wanted to know. One of the things that I noticed was that there were several questions about whether my office provided me with opportunities for collaboration and camaraderie.  My office does not. I am more than okay with that fact. I think there might be a need to maximize office space at the facility because we are becoming overly top heavy with administration staff who are doing jobs that used to be done with only one person - and now there are five people doing what Larry used to do all by himself. So, I think this is the reason that the survey came out, but I have some issues with the questions that they asked. I feel that they were very skewed towards an extroverted point of view and existence. I am an introvert. I am about as introverted as they come on any scale that anyone has developed. I really need quiet and alone time to recuperate after session...

It is Friday, again, and I have been to work for an entire week, again. We had a blizzard on Tuesday evening that made for slick roads on Wednesday, but school went on as usual, so I traveled through the ick and the slick in the gusty winds. I didn't get an afternoon off as planned due to the weather on Wednesday, but I did get an extra half hour to plan yesterday before being surprised by an extra client in my last group of the day. Anyway... Today's topic is my collection of collections - some things that give me great joy and that I have incorporated into music therapy at times and that I continue to try to justify (even though justification is not necessary when something gives you joy!). I am a collector of things. It is part of my packrat tendencies and my generational urge to keep things that most people consider to be trash. I have lots of things that fit into different collections. I have my Disney Pop! collection, my mini brands Disney collections, my toy collections,...

Our current round of inclement weather is over, so I will be returning to work for the first time this week. To a Friday schedule where I only see the adults who are transitioning from school work to work for a leisure session rather than a music therapy session. It feels silly to go for one session, but that's how I get paid, so off I go! Yesterday at this time, the temperature was -9 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chills that were dangerous. Today, the temperature is 4 degrees with no wind chill at all so it actually feels like it is 4 degrees outside. We will be experiencing spring temperatures by Monday - 60 degrees! I am hoping that we do not have any more snow days. We have had eight now which means that we will have to make up a work day at some point. This is the first time this has happened since I stopped going in for inclement weather days, so I am not exactly sure how it will happen for me. In the 29 years I've worked this arrangement, we have only had to make up time...

Yesterday, I enlisted the assistance of my mom and my sister to start with my new project for the next year - sing about themes . I am planning on releasing these thematic packets every month this year to supplement music therapy programming for clients of all ages and goal foci. These thematic packets will come with 4-6 therapeutic music experiences (TMEs), ideas for adaptations to all TMEs for various populations, and a couple of digital files to make visual aids for clients to use during sessions. The first theme is one that is dear to my heart and will be kept a secret for a bit of time, but rest assured that I will be sharing it as soon as I can. The fun for me comes in collaboration with my creative relatives. We are a force to be reckoned with when it comes to creating. I've told you about my mom's current creative force - Barbie furniture and houses, but my sister is also very creative - she channels her creativity into specific projects one thing at a time rather than ...

I work with adolescents, and I can tell you that they are sometimes difficult to engage in what I have to offer them. Right now, I have one who absolutely refuses to engage with me in the music therapy room - no eye contact, no engagement, hunched over - but is effusive when glimpsing me in other places - smiles, enthusiastic greetings, high fives. It is fascinating to me. Now, I have come across clients who have never given me a chance before. I have had a handful that I have never been able to interact with in a meaningful way. I never stop trying, but there are some people who are just not interested in anything that I can give them in my music therapy sessions. It is hard to take at times. I am a people pleaser who just does not like to be disliked. So, the clients who do not like me make a bigger impact on how I feel about myself than the many clients who do seem to like me and what I do with them. I want to give my clients what they want and need during their mandatory time with ...

Today is Friday the 13th of December, and I am getting ready to lead a holiday sing with about 150 people. It is also payday, so it is not a bad day at all. I am currently debating what to wear and how to arrange my music so all can hear and see. I also have a reward session and a group session to run today before the Sing, so I have to figure out things within a slightly different time frame than my usual Friday time blocking. I got a new badge yesterday because I still cannot find my old badges and my keys. Fortunately, I have spare keys so I can get into my inner doors until I find my old keys. They have to be somewhere where I can access them because they are not anywhere else. I have to have dropped them in my car somewhere because I used them to get out to my car. What a mess, but I can access the outer doors now, so I can get into the building when needed. I need to get into the building today. I have run Holiday Sings for about 15 ish years now. These started when we built the ...

I am taking the next two Fridays off for professional development and for collecting some CMTEs for this certification year. I am doing this for several reasons. First, by taking these next two Fridays, I will only miss one clinical session. Second, by taking the second Friday, I will miss having to go to the circus. The circus is a source of trauma for both myself and my mother. I am the reason that my siblings never went to the circus with our family. Neither Mom nor I could handle a repeat of what happened the day we went when I was a toddler! Sorry, siblings, but I'm not all that sorry, if you know what I mean! For some reason, the administrators at my facility are REALLY good at scheduling mandatory participation for my trauma triggers. To avoid the trauma response in myself, I have had to do things like this - take professional time to avoid being placed in situations where my trauma experiences take over my rational mind. I don't share that I am filled with fear when I h...

It is the day after Halloween, and other than a screaming fit from my first group of students where I had to yell in order to be heard, the day went pretty well. I am in immense levels of pain from my repaired knee - don't know if it was sitting on the floor so much, CPR recertification, or the weather that has had the most effect on this level of pain, but it is pretty bad. So, here I am, facing physical behavior management training this afternoon with a bum leg and a close to bum back. Can't wait! Anyway, let's talk about fun things on this Friday. This week, I have been introducing my 21st century musicians to 20th century music technology. I have managed to break two cassette players, a record player from the 1960's, an RCA cord, and my RCA input in my karaoke machine. I did something really hard for me - I threw out the broken cassette players after trying to open them up and fix them. I hate throwing things out that might be able to be fixed, but I also cannot jus...

I am trying something rather new in my music therapy room this school year - leisure-focused sessions rather than just music therapy. Here is the deal - my students do not know how to occupy themselves in their leisure time other than with screens. They can watch television, movies, play video games, but they do not know how to use blocks or Matchbox cars or dolls or puzzles or crossword books or balls. Take away the screens, and my students cannot figure out things to do. This is not something that I have ever experienced. My life has been full of opportunities to get bored, to be away from screens, and to be turned outside to keep myself and my siblings occupied along with all the other kids in the neighborhood. We were supposed to be as safe as possible, but other than that, we had no real guidelines about what we should (goblin) be doing with ourselves. If I had been given a choice in the matter, I would have remained inside, reading, but I did not get that choice. Mom turned us ou...