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's the beginning of the month which means little around here except that it is time to get my month in order. If you are familiar with my blog and way of doing things, then you know that I am a pen and paper person rather than a digital calendar person. I have been using an agenda or planner for most of my life, and I enjoy the routine of writing things down. I have two planners that I design and use on a regular basis. The first is my personal planner. I keep track of chores, appointments, celebrations, and all sorts of stuff in that calendar. My current personal planner is a red covered dot grid journal that I bought from Michaels when they had a buy one, get one sale. I tend to stock up on blank books when those types of sales happen. I have a set pattern for setting up this planner - one week per spread with limited changes to the format. My second journal is my work planner. This is the one that has changed the most recently because my work has shifted from an out-of-home jo...

My home is full of stuff. Music Therapy stuff that I have collected, curated, and used over my career of 33 years as a music therapist. Thirty of those years were at a facility where I worked with school-aged clients in a residential and school setting, so I have lots of materials that are meant to spark the most uninterested of people into some sort of interaction. Add into that all the years of textbook purchases, intern training information, and several decades as a church musician, and I have lots of music and music therapy stuff around, and it is piling up. Right now, my focus is on getting things from work to home. I am almost finished with that process. Once everything is home, I will be ready to organize into my piles - give, sell, toss, and keep. Fortunately, once everything is home in two weeks, I will have all sorts of time to engage in organizing, but I am starting to do some of that right now. I am looking around my space and am trying to envision how I will need to access...

It has been and interesting couple of days around here - I have been trying to find a copy of my birth certificate so I can send in my pension paperwork. I know I have three of them somewhere, but I cannot locate them anywhere. I have since purchased a fire-safe lock box to put these types of things in, but it doesn't arrive until Tuesday. After that, I will put the paperwork I have into that box so they are all contained in the same place. I am frustrated with myself at this point due to this, but I can always order more, if I need to. The thing is that I know I had them when I renewed my passport, and I have the new passport and the old one, so I know that my certificate was returned at some point, but I just cannot find the copy anywhere I thought it would be. Blech. I have, however, found lots of other things in my searches through my boxes of stuff. I need so much more space for all the junk that I have around me, but that isn't going to happen. I need to be downsizing. Th...

I have officially entered the time of the year where it is difficult to tell what day it is on any given day. I have to look at my calendar to see what I will be doing today. As a result, I wake up a bit confused each and every morning. Today will include a change in my schedule - most of my clients from my first group will be gone for the morning to compete in the local Job Olympics. So, I will have an extra hour to sit and contemplate things - or take stuff to my car - that would be a better use of that extra time. I have so much stuff, and I have so little motivation to organize it into useable systems. Just can't get myself to take control of the stuff yet. I am hoping that I will find that motivation before I am finished with stuff, but that's not really happening - yet. I have set up some shelves, and more are on the way for the library.  I am a hoarder. I don't think it is pathological - yet - but it could easily become that way. I have difficulty getting rid of just...

Oh, dear. It is Friday, and I feel that the week went both fast and slow. Having less than usual numbers of sessions and students makes the week seem unfinished somehow. We get to do that again on the week of 19th for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. That type of schedule is difficult to navigate, especially when you are a creature of habit like me. So, it is now the end of my four-day work week. I have two groups and an individual on the schedule today. That's it. The rest of the time that I am at work needs to be productive, but I have not been actually productive lately. So, I will be using my 30 minutes of work with 30 minutes of something else. I am in between visual aid projects at the moment, so I really don't have anything sitting there waiting to be worked on. I guess one of my work tasks should be to print out more visual aids to work on in the next 22 weeks. Meanwhile, back here at home, things are just piling up around here. My Christmas boxes arrived on Monday, and I h...

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...

Here I am, sitting in my bed, and thinking about blogging again - second day in a row!! There is hamburger on the stove, cooking up for various different entrees this week, and I am watching silly sitcoms. I am debating whether I really want to leave my house today. I really don't want to, but I know I need to. Yesterday, I went to Michaels and bought some containers, watercolor paper, and the good erasers. I hit my exhaustion wall after walking around Michaels. I am not sure that I want to go out in the heat and humidity today. The problem is that I need to be walking so I either do it here or outside where it is hot. I bought some containers yesterday. They are portable file folder containers WITH an organizing section for things like pencils, pens, and super sticky post-it notes. As you know, I am a sucker for super sticky post-it notes, so having space for them in an organization tool is a wonderful thing for me. I was thinking about organizing tools when I was walking around t...

This is an old picture!! If you've been reading my blog lately, then you know that I recently took an organizing quiz over at Clutterbug. I thought I was a butterfly, but the quiz tells me that I am a bee. I've taken it twice now, so I guess I really am a bee. Now, when I read through the description of bees, according to Cas, it fits. I am a perfectionist. I do have tons of projects going all the time, and I do prefer to see my stuff rather than put it out of sight. We bees tend to have hoarder tendencies as well. I think my mom is a bee also. One of the things that Cas from Clutterbug recommends for bees is open shelving and clear boxes. Now, I don't have lots of money to purchase beautiful, clear, acrylic drawers for all of my stuff, but I do have enough money to go to the Dollar Tree to get some gray, fabric boxes for my instruments. So, that's what I did. Yesterday, I went to the local Dollar Tree and spend about 13 dollars on boxes for my instrument room. I bought...

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...

My sister is on the phone with me right now, talking about her morning commute which is significantly changing due to freeway construction. We now talk to and from her job. Today's discussion started with a grumble because of traffic and ended with mutual giggles and jokes about birds. Her break is next week, so she is currently engaged in parent-teacher conferences at the end of each day this week in order to prepare. Her teacher life in general education is somewhat different from mine as a therapist in special education, but there are enough similarities that we can bond over the silly stuff that happens in the world of education these days. We have now arrived at the halfway point of my spring break. We may have some snow flurries later today, but it is currently windy and bright and sunny at my home. I have two hours before I can attempt to go to the library and get some new books. I have read four books from my To Be Read pile, so I feel like I can go get some other books wit...

Anyone else used to chant, "slap, bang, here we go again. Here we go again. Here we go again?" Just me? Okay. This seems like a repetition going through my head for today. Here I go again. I am tired, but happy to have an entire week ahead of me for resting and cleaning and discovering things about me that I am ready to learn. I did some clearing out yesterday. The floor of my office area is a bit less cluttered, but it is not finished yet. I did as much as I could stand, but then abandoned the entire thing because I was dizzy and could not trust myself with moving around my environment. I then read a couple of books, cooked some burrito fixings, and then ate my one meal of the day. Today will be a bit more of the same but will also include some stuff outside of my house. I have to go to the bank, the pharmacy, and the movie theater. I might also do some product design and some watercoloring. We will see. Do you ever have something that you know you have put somewhere but you...

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...

I am a packrat. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it means that I am more likely to keep something based on its potential to become something else than I am to throw it away. That means that my home is never neat and minimalistic - no matter how much I try to make it so. I picked up some free magazines at the library the other day - Elle Decor and Veranda publications. I looked through them this weekend after I was finished with the Online Conference for Music Therapy stuff that happened, and I had to laugh out loud. The decor and examples shared in those two publications were SO not what I like, do, or want to achieve in my home. I laughed out loud at the featured furniture selections which were not under $12,000 dollars. I will NEVER have a chair that costs $12,000 dollars! EVER!! There are so many things that I could get for that same amount of money. I quickly decided that subscriptions to these magazines will not suit me at all, but the pictures are nice. I might cut the magazi...

I am in a mode of starting projects, and this one is a doozy. For some time now, I have wanted to change the way my craft space looks. I have a hollow door that I use as my table space, and yesterday, the door was sticking out into the room. This format provided a way to sit and craft while watching television, but when my family came to visit, it became obvious to me that this configuration really blocked most of the room. So, an idea started in my brain to push the door flush against the wall. I started that project yesterday morning.  Now, the thing about me and projects like this one is that I have some ideas in my head of what I want to accomplish, but my body no longer sticks with things until the bitter end. So, I currently have all the furniture pieces put away where I want them, but I have much more to go through, organize, declutter, and then use. I have displaced all of the things that lived in that corner. They are now scattered all over the rest of the room. Fortunatel...

Today is the first, official day of my Fall Break, and the second day of being at home. Since everyone finished their progress reports, we were able to work from home yesterday, and I DID! I started off the day with some blogging (before work hours, of course!), and then followed up with some TPT exploration as I worked on a list of things to include in my next visual aid creation. I started with looking to see what sorts of music schedules are out there, and there aren't many. I remembered that I had purchased one from TPT that merged music education with special education, so I went back into my purchases and found all sorts of things that I already own. That started a marathon printing session, and while printing, I also remembered that I wanted to find some different language "goodbye" phrases to go with my "hello" phrases. I ended up spending $13.30 for four different resources that I will print out when I get to work. After the printing was finished, I sta...

Oh, dear.  My to-do lists are getting longer and longer every moment as I sit in my office and look around all the stuff that is piled in somewhat organized piles waiting to be placed in other places. I am experiencing a bit of overwhelm right now. I have already started a load of dishes, had breakfast, dithered around and around, figured out driving times for an upcoming trip, and am now sitting down to write this post. I tend to get bogged down in planning rather than the doing process - especially when it comes to cleaning and clearing! I want to organize, but I tend to stuff things rather than take the time to organize. So, today will be another experiment. I have nine plastic totes - the bigguns - that I am going to use better. My most recent water accident has shown me that plastic totes are better than the boxes, so things are going into plastic totes. I want to label what is in each tote as I put things in. I have some 4X6 index cards that I will use. I can also scan those ...

It is Saturday, and my Friday was a wasted day. I remained in bed throughout the day, taking occasional naps, reading books, and still sleeping all night. My home is still as disorganized as it was before, but I have a bit more energy this morning than I did yesterday. I need to change out of my pajamas to get the trash cans from the curb, but I am not planning on leaving my home other than that! It is a good feeling to be able to just plan on being at home. I am currently listening to an author talk about editing her recent book after getting alpha readers to read through it all. This creator is engaging online, and I tend to listen to her videos often because she just chats, and I like that. She is currently talking about spending lots of time on really small tasks and concepts in her story that really do not matter in the long run, but that will make big differences once she gets things done. I can relate to her discussion about all of the things that she talks about. I like knowing...

You know how I had no idea what I would do with my 30 minute groups on Wednesday? Well, I came up with something that seemed pretty successful - always a good situation to find yourself in! I sat in my office space and just thought and thought. I had a stack of books that I had to put away, and I decided that a singable book might be a good way to get music going in a very hot environment. So, I went through the stack of books and found one that I could expand upon. I selected Groovy Joe: Ice Cream and Dinosaurs  as my book for the week. It is not a song book (as far as I know), but there is a song affiliated with the book (I did not download it), so it lent itself well to an improvised song/chant with a background beat. I kept up the dinosaur theme and showed my clients a magnetic play set of dinosaurs that I purchased from the Dollar Tree store many years ago. I sang/asked them to choose their favorite from the pictures. Most of them selected brachiosaurus as their favorite. Mine...

I found my flute!! I still haven't found my copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  which I have been wanting to read this summer, but I found the flute! It needs lots of work, but it is mine, and I have been wondering where I put it. I found my clarinet and my saxophone, but the flute was absent from my instrument room. Why? It was in the library boxes. It is a WT Armstrong flute that I found in a thrift store. It is pretty beat up, but it seems to be a good instrument overall. It is closed hole but appears to be silver plated. This is sparking my interest in learning how to repair instruments. Perhaps that is a next job type situation - becoming an instrument repair person. There is only the weekend between me and the extended school year program at my job. That is all that I have left before heading back into the grind. At the moment, my house has been taken over by a very large dehumidifier and three air movers. There is a consistent sound happening all over my home a...