music, therapy, and me

My word for this year is "play." I select a word each year that helps me focus on self-improvement. In the past, I have had many words designed to inspire me to do more. Before this year started, I decided that I was tired of self-improvement, and I wanted to spend more time on things that I found fun. So, I decided that "play" was my word back at the end of 2023. As we enter the last quarter of 2024, it is time to start thinking about what I want to be doing this next year. I have enjoyed the focus on finding things that are fun and help me play with things and people. I want to continue this focus, so I will be looking at different words and ideas for what I want to do in 2025. One of the reasons I chose the word "play" as my focus is professional in nature. I was not feeling happy with how things were going in my music therapy practice. I was feeling creatively blocked at a level that is not my normal. I wanted to find my first love again - doing things...

Three days ago, I said, "Farewell" to intern #33 and now I am getting ready for intern #35 who will start in 10 days. Intern #34 is still going strong at the facility and will be around until October, but now is a perfect time to review #33's time with me and make some changes for #35. #34 is stuck with the revisions that I made after #32 - that's just the way this goes. So, it is time to sit down and make some revisions to all of my internship documents. I will start with the Internship Handbook - this is facility-specifc, though I guess I could make a more general version to share with others...hmm. Tangent - need to focus. The first part that I look at is the assignment list. These assignments have changed pretty significantly over the years that I have been an internship director, but I feel that the changes reflect things that I need to know about in my professional role. I am sure that there are other things I could include in my assignments - for example, I do ...

It is the end of this calendar year, and I always become nostalgic when it comes to changing the year from one to the next. This year has been full of challenges and ups and downs, and I feel the need to talk about where I am in this moment right here, right now. I took my cat's leftover consumables to the vet yesterday to give the resources to cats who will be able to use them. I have closed the door to her bathroom and haven't cleaned out her litter box yet. I know that it is silly not to clean up, but I just can't do it yet. I am allowing myself the opportunity to grieve the way I need to grieve. I will know when it is time to say that final goodbye. I also went to my Occupational Therapist for my second appointment. I increased my range of motion in all joints but am not to full mobility or range yet. She told me to start playing the piano and to attempt the guitar again. I also have these wonderful straps to "help" me stretch. Doesn't that look like fun? ...

Do you remember all the posts that were coming across social media about how rough 2019 was for many of us and how much we were looking forward to the new start that was 2020? I do, and I long for those naive days when 2020 seemed to be a big step forward into life. Little did we all know that 2020 would be what it is now. Since it is now July and quarter three, I've been sitting down to do some things that I do pretty much every quarter. I sit down to make goals for myself and evaluate my progress on the goals for the previous quarter. This quarter also coincided with filling up my old bullet journal, so all of this planning and evaluation is happening in my new journal - the one I'm designing for myself. What have I learned from doing this exercise?? I am great at establishing goals but LOUSY at working towards them at all! I always have really sound and appropriate goals written down for myself, but I rarely make any progress on them at all. I am constantly making grandiose ...

In August, I posted thoughts about my resolutions for the new year. Since yesterday was the end of the regular school year (we do have 28 days of an extended school year that will start in a week, but the regular year is now over), I thought I'd take today to see what progress I made this year. The original information is in italicized print, and my updates are in bold below. So, here are my new school year resolutions for the 2018-2019 school year! Daily happiness: Over on some of my other social media feeds, I have a practice of finding something in my life that is a positive. During this past year, I've found that this focus on positive thoughts in the morning really helps me focus on something that is good rather than dwelling in the negative. Today's post? About the past computer problems that I've had on this day - seriously, I've had to replace my computer twice on August 13th, the internet seems to stop working on this day, and monitors blow -...

So, here we are. The very last day of 2012. It's time for a bit of reflection and thoughts about what has happened this year. January 2012 January brought a surge of creativity for me as well as intern #19! I posted quite a bit about changes to my website including the launch of the section about Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs). February 2012 February found me involved in the 2nd Online Conference for Music Therapy, at home with bronchitis, and at the end of my January creative surge. I thought I would be able to start the CMTE process, but that did not happen financially. March 2012 Manipulation and Mallets were the themes for March. I started my webinar series with a presentation about making mallets. The first webinar went fine...I have since changed the presentation format since the first format was little bitty, but it was an empowering feeling to be able to engage in online conferencing. For this, I have to thank John Lawrence, a music therapist from Canada who ...