music, therapy, and me

It is Sunday again, and I have a little bit of time before I have to head out into the time change world to try to sing enough to lead worship this morning. It is time to see what past me has to say to present me. I plugged in the number of posts that I have written on this blog about music, therapy, and me (3,393) into a random number generator and then started up the generator. It spat out post #2117 , so I am taking a glimpse back to February 27, 2019 .  Oh, February. It is usually the month where we get the most inclement weather. For it being the shortest month in duration, it always seems like the longest month of the year. This year was no exception. I was not looking forward to anything about February 27th - it was a Wednesday. It was a 12-hour day. It was a possible inclement weather day after a series of inclement weather days. I was not happy when I was writing. One of the things that I am noticing more and more about myself and about the people around me is when we get ...

Whoo, boy! I think this year, more than any, has been overly full of stress and issues. Last year, at this time, we were three days away from going into no contact with clients at all as COVID-19 finally developed in my residential clientele. We went into going into work two days per week (without seeing clients) and three days from home. I had two interns and had to scramble to find things for us to do at home to earn their hours and my salary. We ended up making tons of visual aids, writing lots of Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs), and starting our YouTube Channel at that time. This year, the stresses are not as COVID related, but the virus is still wreaking havoc on my small facility and what we can do for our clients and on the staff members who are having to continue to pivot how things are done over and over again. The biggest problem with this situation is that everyone is feeling the same things. You go down the road to the local fast food place, and you will find the same ...

I really do not like Wednesdays when we get back into our regular school schedule. It has nothing to do with the groups that I see on Wednesdays - they are the same year round. It has everything to do with the fact that Wednesdays are now back to being the halfway point of my week. In our summer session, Tuesday afternoons are the halfway point. I am not a fan of the five day workweek. Yesterday was rough. I ended up having to engage a client in a safety assist while other clients were in the music therapy room being supervised by my intern which is a technical no-no. We are back to being short-staffed and I had no support. Fortunately, I got through the assist without injury, but I am honestly traumatized by the injuries that I have received at the hands of my clients, and I was scared to do what I had to do. I did it, but I am not happy about it. Today, I will take myself into the same situation that I have been in forever. Not enough staff to support what needs to happen in sessions...

I am officially half-way through my music therapy week, and I am WIPED OUT! Egad! I always feel this way during the summer which is one reason why I do not have such good summers. I am constantly bombarded by scents that irritate my already irritated lungs which leads to medication use and breathing treatments and the need to stay pretty close to my rescue inhaler because I just can't predict when some numb knob will decide that they deserve to clog up my air with Scentsy products (can't breathe around them), or, even worse, use spray air freshener! Before I sink into a diatribe about scents and their use in the workplace, I want to shake myself out of this situation and into another frame of thought. I am not looking forward to my groups today. I am tired and crabby and finding it difficult to breathe, but I will drag my aching body into work to do what I have to do today because I am jealously guarding my last remnant of sick time for this year until after the new contract ye...