music, therapy, and me

I am still brainstorming potential themes for my future blogging. It is not really something that I am devoting lots of time towards, but the thoughts are percolating a bit as I continue to do what I usually do. Having themes is not really all that important, but it does help me organize my thoughts when I am sitting at the computer, wondering what to write about. Without a theme, I tend to act like I am trying to figure out what to eat for dinner. It is hot here, so I am not going to leave my house today. I am going to spend time clearing out some boxes in my bedroom so I can navigate easily after abdominal surgery in nine days. My hospital bag is packed with clothing and charging cables. Mom's bed is made and ready for her. I still need to clean the kitchen - I always have good intentions that flop miserably when I actually walk into the kitchen. I have the fixins for my grandma's chili, so I will stir up a big pot of that to eat this week. I am still slogging through Sense a...

Today's post is focused on my biggest purchase point right now - Thriftbooks.com. If you are a bibliophile and haven't started shopping at that site, then you are really missing out! I love books, and I have no difficulty reading books that are used. I also like the idea that these books are not being thrown away or [shudder] used for crafting. (That is the one papercrafting situation that makes me sad - cutting up vintage books to use for other things. I know that it is fine, but I can't. I just can't! The only books that I will cut up are the ones that are damaged to the point of not being readable - AND, that only after I get a replacement copy!) So, I buy used books. This has been a great place to find books for music therapy sessions. Anyway, this is a site that I highly recommend if you want to find books that are affordable. (I am not sponsored by them at all, by the way - I just like their service!) I get my books quickly, and they are always as promised when it...

It's Wednesday of this Spring Forward week, and it has hit me hard. I was okay the first three days of this week, but today I was struggling to open my eyes and find any sort of enthusiasm about leaving my bed. It doesn't help that this is the week before break, I still have a 12 hour day tomorrow, and a day of professional development with arthritic knees and spine ahead of me. Everything is just seeming more and more difficult to navigate - and it is all stress that I put on myself!! So, to distract me from all the senses of stress and doom that I am feeling due to my timing and need to get things organized that will not be organized no matter what, here is what I've been reading lately.  I turned in my last batch of library books on Sunday, so I am tackling my To Be Read pile. I bought BIG books this last time. There is a Jane Austen omnibus waiting for me to bite the bullet and dive back into the world of Victorian romance and courtship. That is not my favorite world to...

Well, it is Wednesday again, and I have been up for a very long time. For some reason, I woke up in the midst of hot flashes that just kept on going and going about 1:30 am, so I've been awake for a long time already. Two lines of thunderstorms have come through my area, so it has been an interesting morning already. Wednesdays are when I take some time to reflect on what I am reading, but it really isn't all that interesting, so I am going to veer a bit away from all that to my current reading quest. About three weeks ago, I signed up for a library card for my town library. I went inside the library to get the physical card, but I am going to use this library card more for the digital resources it provides than the physical books - mainly because I hate going downtown to get to the library. There is just too many people downtown (it is our touristy place in my college town), and the roads are one-way until they aren't, and I just don't like the situation. There is a pa...

One of the things that you may not know about me is that I have written several music therapy session books. I have offered these on my website for many years, but I've decided to add them to my TPT store so others can find them. I put the first one, sing about autumn , on the store this morning. I am not anticipating that many people will purchase these, but I want to get them out there more than they have been out there before. Just so you know, sing about songs  have been my projects for many years. I love writing therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) and sharing them with others. One of my areas of research has been music to support learning across the age range, and I have always wanted to write music for an organization like Sesame Workshop or Fred Rogers Productions. I am fascinated by the way that music can enhance and enrich learning in ways that other pedagogical methods just do not. When I first decided to go back to continue my education in music therapy, I wanted to do...

It is Sunday again. Today's randomly selected post comes to us from May 22, 2015 - the day after my birthday - and is all about music-themed gifts. Do you ever get things that are musical because you are a music therapist? I don't get them very often, so when music-themed gifts arrive for various celebrations, they make an impact. On this birthday, I found a music and cat themed necklace in my gifts. It is still one of my favorite pieces of jewelry because it combined things that I love into one representation. My jewelry is still in a box somewhere - I need to find it and unpack all that stuff so I can wear it again. (Not at work, but when I am not at work... you get it!) Most of the things that I own that are music-themed are things that I have found for myself. Most of the things that I own that are music instruments are from my family members. Most of the music that I own is something that I purchased, but some of it was gifted to me. It is interesting how things arrive in ...

I had Monday off from work. That made this week seem indeterminably long. It always happens that way. I am never really sure why, but having Monday off makes Tuesday through Friday just drag on and on... My week was full of watching my intern lead sessions, leading my own sessions, and lots and lots of thinking. This past four days was not a "doing" time, but was a thinking time. I did put together a paper bag junk journal for a co-worker's birthday. It turned out pretty well, and she's an art therapist so she will use it for all sorts of things. I am having fun making things for other people. Everyone is getting some sort of homemade gift from me, and I am using up some of my stuff in the process! That is the best part of all for me - using up stuff!! My interest in papercrafting stems from my interest in books. I like books in all sorts of forms. I like hardbacks and paperbacks, blank books and picture books. Books are a part of my necessities all the time. It is ra...

Oh, dear. This is going to be one of my "less than interesting to anyone except for me" type of posts. I am trying to change my life circumstances from apartment dweller to townhome owner and am in the "Why the heck do I have this much stuff, anyway?" stage. It is disheartening to see the boxes pile up with no appreciable decrease in the amount of things that need to be packed, but I must move forward. Egad! I am getting bogged down in stuff, and it is not good to be bogged down at all! I am going through my old textbooks and am sorting through what I want to keep and what I want to send out into the void of thrift stores. Since I live in a university town that has a music therapy population, I thought that sending my texts to the thrift stores might be one way to get those texts into the hands of people who cannot spend $45 on a text but who would be thrilled to get the text for $1.59. I am trying to figure out what I am going to do with the stuff that I have next ...

I had a really good day yesterday. I spent time decluttering, shopping, and crafting. I finished up a small book that I made out of thick cardstock, some craft paper, and various bits of writing paper and scrapbook paper. This was a bit surreal, but this book wanted to be finished, so I finished it. I am not going to use it as a journal (I don't have enough words to write in all the journals that I make), so I am going to give it away to someone. Who wants it? Really!! I feel that this book has a home out in the world somewhere, and I want to give it away! Here are some of the pictures of this little book. The first is next to a tall paperback book to give you an idea of the size of the book itself. I did not measure it, but I will do that from now on. I think this will become a habit - making a book and then giving it to someone who wants it.  This is not my typical style of book, but it was fun to put together. I used some vintage photo cutouts to put together this couple on th...

Well, I started my new, personally motivated, professionally enriching book challenge this week. I sat down and made myself a reading tracker to include in my CMTE tracking notebook, and I started with the first chapter of Wellness, Incorporated: The Health Entrepreneur's Handbook by Jennifer Buchanan. I sat down with my notebook - the cool Star Wars one that I'm using for tracking my continuing education these days - and opened up my Kindle. I downloaded (after paying for) this book when it first came out, because I really enjoy Jennifer Buchanan, and I admire her ability to be a music therapy entrepreneur. I have another one of her books on my reading list as well - one that is more about how to do music therapy than how to do business, but this one is the one I need right now. I have been working on figuring out what I want for myself and the world of music therapy. To do this, I've been focusing on my vision for my future. I foresee a time when my body will j...

I've been reading some of my Kindle resources lately. (Just a side note, I'm a bibliophile, and this trend is happening for me in the form of free Kindle books - the more, the better!!) I found a collection of essays, chapters, or thoughts about being productive in these days, and I downloaded it. It's called, Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind. (Can you see why it interested me?). It is edited by Jocelyn K. Glei, and is published by 99U. I found it on Amazon. I'm spending some time at work (while my intern is using my computer), sitting in the window, reading these recommendations, and then taking notes in my traveler's journal. This is part of my "use work hours for work" focus, and it's been interesting to read through some of the resources that I have available to me. This collection offers ideas from many different people. The "chapters" are quick reads and take many diff...

It has been a long week full of illness in my neck of the woods, so you may have noticed (or maybe not, that's okay) that I haven't posted many of the days this week. I am starting to feel better, though, so I thought it would be good to start off this whole feeling better thing with a Song Conversion Sunday post - something to start the week off right. Here we go... Over the past couple of weeks, I've been taking a song that I found in one of my songbooks, one that was randomly selected from one of my many shelves of sheet music books, and a song that was chosen by opening up the book to a random page. The page that I selected has a really simple song on it that I really do not like a whole bunch, but that is the song that I have, so that is the song that I'm using. (If you want to read more, check out these posts - Post One and Post Two .)  It is now time to figure out how to use this song clinically. The music is not complex at all - good for multiple uses. ...

It is Sunday again, and that means that I will take a song, randomly chosen from my shelves of sheet music books and single copies of music, to analyze and make into something that has a therapeutic purpose for my music therapy practice. This process jumpstarts my creative interpretation of music in general by making me think about something out there in the world that doesn't have any therapeutic meaning for me to begin with and then finding that meaning through contemplation, study, and thought. This month's song is from a book called, Musically Speaking . It was written by Roberta Wilson Dolana, published by Word Making Productions located in Salt Lake City, Utah. I can find very little information about the company or the author/composer, so I'm thinking it is a very obscure book. Now, I got this book from the discard pile at my facility when they disbanded the employee resource library many years ago. I'm sure that I picked it up because it had music in ...