music, therapy, and me

Yesterday, I was so proud of myself for posting a Monday topic, but then I realized it was actually Tuesday. Ugh. That's the type of thing that runs around in my brain, even when it is just as silly as being a day off of my schedule. It is silly, but my time anxiety stretches into being incorrect about any sort of time. Once I changed the title of the post, I was able to let it go - well, sorta. This is my last official break before retirement. I managed to send off my paperwork for my pension yesterday. After I finished that task, I came home, sent off some ideas for CMTEs, figured out another CMTE situation, and then finished a book for my book challenge at my local library. Today's task is getting the glass replaced in my sliding glass door. The lawn folks kicked up a rock about a month ago that shattered the outside pane of my slider. They are coming to replace the pane today. I have to be available for 90 minutes (give or take) and have to clear the stuff right by the door...

It is the first day after Spring Break, and I have torn myself away from my bed and to the computer. I will be taking a shower here in a bit before heading to work, stopping to get gasoline on the way. I will see five groups of students and one individual before doing bus duty and then returning here to collapse into my bed. My knees are still hurting after kneeling on the floor to do behavior management training and CPR during the professional development day that we had just before we left for break. This means that I will not be moving much until my knees are no longer hurting. The first day after a break is usually pretty smooth because students are glad to be back. The second day after a break is usually pretty rough because none of us want to be back. I am hoping that today goes smoothly because I have lots that I need to get done in between session times. They have hired my successor, so I need to get my things out of the storage space as soon as possible. I have made a good sta...

For the first time in a long time, the new year has corresponded with the start of my new journal. I spent over a year in the last one, so this is somewhat of a surprise to me that I FINALLY filled the 200 page book and am getting to start another one. We will see how long this one lasts me before I can start another one, but there is something pretty fun and satisfying about transferring from one book to the next one. I am really taking my 2026 word of the year to heart right now. Metamorphosis is coming. I am heading towards a new phase of existence, and while it is a bit scary, it is also exhilarating. I am getting ready to become something else in my profession, and I am both excited and terrified of the transition! I took some steps towards my new existence on Friday by opening my business accounts with the seed money I have saved over the years. New accounts and a new bank. I have had a bill that will be covered by the business next year (I am hoping), and that is something that ...

I am halfway through my break now, and I am starting to think about work again. I am not really planning sessions or anything like that, but I am starting to figure out my timeline for the next six months. Even though I still have six months at my current job, I am finding myself more and more looking at the future. I am both exhilarated and terrified by this change in my life. The last time I had such an enormous life change was in 1996 when I moved across the country for graduate school. It is more than time, though. I never intended to stay where I am as long as I have. The problem is that I am unsure how I will earn money starting on July 1st. If all goes as planned, I will start the new year in my own home. I will have another four days of time away from work to arrange things in my house and my life. We have an educational enrichment day away from work, so I am going to spend some time taking stock of what I have in my music therapy resources. The music therapy room is getting mo...

It is Boxing Day here where I am, and it is raining again. It was raining when I came to visit, we had some sunshine yesterday, and now it is raining again. That is a good thing for the place where I am located, but it is getting to flooding stage because the desert ground is getting saturated and will be sliding down the mountains pretty soon. Where I am staying is not in any danger from mudslides, but you never know what might happen... Anyway... Yesterday was a good day of leisurely celebration with Mom and Sister. We ate good food, opened our presents, and did all of our traditions. I received lots of capybara items - my favorite animal of them all. I also opened up the cutest little R2-D2 Bluetooth speaker and a huge R2-D2 popcorn tin. I now have more of my favorite Ivy Corelle dishes, and my sister's secret Holiday Casserole recipe (all sorts of M&Ms in a huge dish - SCORE!!). The gifts I gave were duly appreciated. Mom got all sorts of glue from me while my Sister got lo...

Merry Christmas, to those of us who celebrate, and Happy Wednesday to those of us who do not! It is time to start one of my end-of-the year traditions - recaps and reveals for the next year. Today, let's recap this year a bit. I'm not going to sugarcoat it - 2025 was a rough year for me. The major headline is that my doctors found and then cut out my first bout with colon cancer. I am hoping that preventative colonoscopies will keep me from having to lose any more of my bowel (I've already had over 2 feet of large intestine surgically removed), but we will see. My grandmother died of complications with colon cancer and a work acquaintance of mine also recently passed away from the same thing, so this has been on my mind this year. I did not go on any trips this year. This is unusual since we (my Mom, my Sister, and I) are starting to take summer trips as a unit. Instead, due to the aforementioned cancer, my Sister, Mom, and Aunt came to my house to help me through my first ...

It is time to finish up my holiday plans, print out the last little things for my Mom, and finish the laundry and the dishes. I have some routine car maintenance happening later this morning, so there are things to get going. I need to get the car washed (it is FILTHY!) before I take it to the car shop, so I have to get going here. Before I do all of that, though, I need to print out some digital files that I found for my mother's enjoyment. She is currently really into making Barbie sized miniatures, so I found some files that will help her do that. My sister just rolls her eyes when Mom gets started, but I keep reminding Sis that it could be worse and that Mom's habit is not that bad as far as things go. It is a messy hobby, though, and Mom hasn't been able to get rid of her other hobby materials, so things do pile up. As they do around here. Wonder where I get it from? I don't. I have to make different sized pages in order to get these things at the appropriate size ...

I am at the end of my second week of enforced rest and healing after my abdominal surgery at the end of last month. I have two and a half weeks left before I go back to my full-time job as a clinical music therapist at a psychiatric residential treatment facility in the associated school. This "rest" has been something necessary but difficult nonetheless. I do not do a good job of self-entertaining when work is happening without me. Now don't get me wrong. There are benefits to being out of work at the moment. First, I am able to rest while my body works on healing the connections that have been recently made. Second, I get bored with my own company, and that makes going back to work much easier. Third, it has been many years since I have had this much time off from work, so I am reveling in the opportunity to become this bored. I do better when I am occupied. Being on an enforced break from work means that my brain is grasping for any sort of thought that it can generate...

Today is the last official day of my beginning of summer break, and I am not quite ready to move back into the world of music therapy. I took the first week of summer school off because I had family visits due to a medical procedure that I had to go through that confirmed a diagnosis but did absolutely nothing else for me. I am now navigating more specialists and more appointments for the next steps of this process, and it has been good to have an empty house and lots of time available to get this situation moving forward. I have taken a couple of naps during this week. I have also fielded many phone calls about test results, next steps, referrals, and appointments. I am going to my first appointment this morning to arrange the surgery that I need. I am hoping to get a call today from the other department that I need to be part of in the near future. Life gets more complicated when I go back to work, so I am hoping to have things set before I go back to work on Monday. I appreciate bre...

Today is the last day of my Spring break, so I am getting myself geared up to return to my daily routine.  I have nine weeks before the next round of medical procedures, so I have nine weeks to get my house ready for visitors. I also have a grocery order to pick up, food to cook and freeze, and a bedroom to clear. I don't want to do anything, but I will. There are definitely places where you can see changes in my environment. I put lots of boxes into recycling from the living room. The desk is still clearer than it was and is ready for some filming. I moved some bookshelves around that allow me to arrange laminating materials and file folders for some creation.  I have done laundry, cleaned the sheets, washed many of the dishes (there are always more to wash, though), read four books, and napped (but only once or twice over the past nine days). I have been shopping outside my house a couple of times. I have spent lots of money on groceries, and I had my annual visit with my fi...

Today has been a challenging day already. Something I ate yesterday did not agree with my intestinal tract, so I am now trying to figure out which new thing (I had three new things yesterday) was the culprit while still trying to maintain a bit of decorum. I just saw that a job that I was invited to apply for, went on an interview, and then was completely ghosted about is open again. I am confused and disgusted about how this job was handled, especially about the ghosting part of it all. To be honest, I would not be able to take the job due to the dismal salary, but I wonder why no one ever interacted with me ever again - not even a "no thank you" letter to close the inquiry. Now, they want other people to go through the process again? At least it means that the other candidate also did not get the job or did not want it. I wonder if they let that person know anything or if they were left hanging the same way I was left hanging. I now have more questions about things than ans...

Today is day seven of nine.  Day six ended up with some progress down here in the office area. I emptied a couple of boxes, moved some shelves around, put things into boxes, and set up my robot vacuum. I also made burritos for breakfast and then just watched television the rest of the day. I bet today's to-do and got-done list will be similar. I have to add getting my trash cans from the curb to the things to do today, but other than that, I have no plans other than making a bit more sense of my home environment.  I have three more bins down here in the office to go through. I have ordered box cutters since I can't find them where I currently shop. I have a yen to make some greeting cards to send to friends. I want to be creating things, but I am struggling to make the time when my environment is not looking clean and clear. So, I will be doing some cleaning and clearing before crafting. This has been an okay break. I have finished some of the tasks on my to-do list. I have ad...

It is the downhill slide from break back to work now. We are over the halfway point, and I am progressing on my quests. One of the benefits to being on the trek back to work is that my brain is wanting to create and is coming up with ideas that I am trying to capture on paper as much as possible. I think I have come up with my workshop idea for the World Congress of Music Therapy next year, but I want to play with the idea a bit before I submit it. It is nice to have some ideas come into my brain at this time. It is exhilarating to get ideas of projects that need to be done and developed. I am watching a YouTuber that I enjoy, Emily Harvey, who has a small sticker business in the United Kingdom. She is currently moving from being a full-time mom and small business owner to working outside her home again in a full-time job in addition to the other things that she does. She is trying to focus on her small business one hour a day in the afternoon to get things done and to be able to have ...

Overwhelmed. It is Tuesday of my spring break, and I have hit my overwhelmed point a couple of days early. I misplaced my planner when I started cleaning down here in the office. I just found it, so I am feeling a bit better about things right now. It's amazing how much I depend on that book. Now that I have found it, I am feeling a bit less overwhelmed.  Egad. When I feel overwhelmed with things, I find that the best thing for me to do is to get busy with chores. Chores tend to be a big part of the overwhelm, so it is best to get things done. Unfortunately, the chores are the source of the overwhelm so the cycle goes around and around. A couple of years ago, I made an index card collage of things that I can do when I am feeling this way. It is a silly little card, but it does help me when I need it. It includes things like reading a book or taking a walk or cleaning a corner. I used to keep it in my journal, but I left it behind a bit ago. I want to put it back in there to remind ...

It is time for Spring Break from my school job, and I am getting ready for a week of staycation and time to myself. As a result, I may or may not be writing as much this week. I am getting myself ready for rest and cleaning. I just now realized that my plans to go to the library on Monday have to change because there will be a St. Patrick's Day parade on Monday. I will not be going anywhere near my downtown area because of the parade. Getting free parking will be difficult, so I will be remaining away from the library on the 17th. Already, I am shifting my plans around. Going to the library was one of two things that I have to do outside of my house, and now the plan has changed. I am really thankful that I remembered the parade today and not on Monday morning when I was stuck in the whole mess!! It is time to buckle down and get my home environment working for me. I am working on my motivation and follow through for this week, so I am going to try to work on reconfiguring my livin...

Through a cruel twist of fate, my school is the only school where school is actually happening today in my district and in much of the state. I just realized as well that we will not get an inclement weather day on Monday when we will need it due to ice because everyone else will not be in school on Monday. So. Blech. Today is my regular Friday schedule, so I will see one group of young adults for leisure skill promotion rather than for music therapy. As far as I know, we do not have a new classroom open, so I should not have my other scheduled group, but I do have a reward session for one of our clients who spent STARS to get extra time in the music therapy room. We will be recording her lyrics to different songs. Two sessions. The rest of the day will be spent organizing and strategizing and preparing for next week and this month. We will be discussing Japanese music and introducing the concept of the musical map and playing games and doing music therapy things. I am grateful that my...

It is almost the end of my break. Today is travel day, so I am getting my things together for the trip back to where I live and work. I have late afternoon/night flights today, so I get to spend some time with my family before heading to the airport. I tend to prefer early flights over late ones, but this schedule gave me a great deal to the airport 15 minutes from my Mother's house rather than having to go through the hullabaloo that is LAX, so I am taking the late flights.  I have strict instructions to strip my bed before I go. I will have a room inspection as well because I tend to leave things behind. I have my travel clothing all picked out, and I am ready to go. The problem? There are many hours between this moment and when I actually leave. I am not an anxious traveler except when it comes to timing. That's where my anxiety comes in. How much time will it take to get to the airport? How much time will it take to go through security? How much time will I need to get a me...

This picture is a picture of Walter, my Mother's cat. He is sitting on the towels that she has put down because he likes to vomit in protest when he does not get to go outside. He is halfway between where I am sitting and where my mother is sitting, and this is how he sits at times. Just thought I would include him because he puts himself into all sorts of situations where his whiskers do not belong!! Here it is. Another Saturday morning. I am sitting in my Sister's childhood bedroom which is now the papercrafting room in my Mother's house. The room is covered with bookshelves housing stamps and markers and decorative stickers and die cuts and punches and paper galore. Looking at this room, it is evident that I come by my packrat tendencies by both nature and nurture. My childhood bedroom is the fabric and sewing room. My Brother's childhood bedroom is my Mother's computer room, and Dad's suite is where Mom goes to shred documents. It is interesting how this hou...

I am currently sitting in the family room at my last childhood home, blogging, and thinking about stuff. Nothing really all that important is going through my head, but I am thinking. There is something about being physically away from all things that I have to do that makes my brain start to rumble about other things. It happens every time I come here, and I am both invigorated by it and frustrated about it at the same time. For example, I love that I do not have to work for the next week. I love that I can spend time with the family members who are here, and I love that I can putter around. I am enjoying my mother create things for her Barbie dolls, and I love the self-satisfied giggle she emits when she accomplishes something for herself. We have a project to start creating some rooms to furnish with all the things that she is creating, and I hope that we get to that pretty soon. The frustration comes from not having my own things to create with. I am away from my own stuff, and Mom...

I have tried to write the past two days - I really have, but things have not worked out the way I thought it would happen. I just found myself becoming bored with what I was writing about. No reason to continue when that happens, so I just stopped. I have six days (including today) before I head back to my hot music therapy clinic to start the 2024-2025 school year. I have a doctor's appointment and a crafting class in those six days (I am trying to remember that I have that crafting class on Saturday - I've prepaid, so I don't want to miss it!). Other than finishing up six of the seven books that I borrowed from the library, I have little to nothing else to do until work starts back up. Yesterday, I finished laminating most of the materials that I made recently. The file folders are not laminated because I accidentally bought the wrong type of laminating film and it is not working well with the laminators that I have here at home. I will figure out how to make it work once...