music, therapy, and me

I had a good day yesterday. I did two loads of laundry (one was bedding), went grocery shopping, wrote a bunch of ideas down for my new project, and watched lots of television. I am currently enjoying some British quiz shows and doughnuts. I have been craving doughnuts lately, so this was my major impulse buy yesterday when I went to the grocery store and actually went into the store. That's one of the problems with going into the store - the doughnuts are right there. (Now, I am writing doughnuts because that's what's on the package of the box that I bought. Usually, I would just order so the temptation is not as strong, but I felt that I needed to go out and be people-adjacent (masked and everything safe), so off I went! It was raining early in the morning (my favorite time to go grocery shopping), and I set out. It continued to rain until I had brought in the trash cans and unloaded the groceries and then it cleared up and got HOT! I remained in my home for the rest of t...

I am formally announcing the newest part of musictherapyworks.com on this TME Tuesday, right here, right now, as I enjoy a couple of apple fritters and wonder how I can get rid of the ants that insist on liking my kitchen more than the rainy outside. I was going to launch my newest binder system this morning, but I do not have my jump drives so I will have to do some more steps before I can move forward with that project.  As a result, I have to figure out something to write about today, so here it is!  I have been offering my sing about songs for many years now. This is a collection of original therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that I have produced for sharing with other music therapists. I have books, I have subscription series, and now I have thematic packets! Do you ever have a time when you are stuck for an idea for a specific client or group of clients? Do you ever have to work on diverse clients goals during sessions? Do you ever feel like you are in a rut doing the...

Here it is, Sunday again, and I haven't cracked a book to talk about. I did, however, continue a course on Music Education and Special Needs from Berklee yesterday. While most of the information covered yesterday did not have any sort of relevance to my life as a music therapist, I am working on a concept of preparing my students for any future music education experiences that they may have. During the course that I am taking, we are talking about how to prepare as music educators for persons with differing ability levels. I have a bit of a different perspective since I meet kids but not music educators. For this course, I am completing two projects. The first is a communication binder for my clients to use during group and individual music therapy sessions. It will include some activity choices, instrument choices, general communication tools (BIG yes/no), and some music therapy specific choice cards. I am getting ready to do the line drawings for the activity choices and the inst...

I am a bit overly medicated at the moment, so I have to delay my commute for another hour. I am not accustomed to being late to work, but I do have a dispensation from my principal due to my current medical issues, so I am going to take advantage of that dispensation and not leave until the sun has risen completely. I am hoping that my side effects will be gone by that time so I can drive myself the hour to work safely. We shall see... I am tired today, but I am ready to get the last month of school for the 21-22 school year going. We have 32 days left (including weekends) until we have two weeks - TWO WEEKS - off for our first summer break. My facility has an extended school year, so we will work four days a week for most of the month of June and then the same schedule for three weeks of July before our last summer break. The 22-23 school year starts up in August, and my school calendar is finally starting to mirror the school district calendar. We will have less 12-hour days and more...

I was able to accomplish yesterday's goal of arriving at work exactly on time - I was on the property, parking the car at 7:14 am! I did not allow any sort of anxiety reaction take over - I had to tell myself quite frequently that it would be fine (especially when I got stuck behind one slow school bus) if I was a couple of minutes late. I always stay later than I have to, so there is no reason why I should be feeling any sort of guilt that I am not at work enough for what they pay me. I am, and more than! I am repeating the process today. I have less responsibilities than usual today because we have closed a classroom due to a COVID outbreak. So, my third class of the day has been cancelled because we have no new students. I have almost an entire afternoon to work on my digital resources for my students. I need to buckle down on that project for October - I've decided to do a presentation about bullying. We spend lots of time with kids on how to identify bullies, and not as mu...

Music therapy friends - I'm starting some monthly meets.   Our first Monthly Music Therapy Meet will happen on January 12, 2021 at 8EST/7CST/6MST/5PST.    Attendance is free for everyone. The meeting will be held via Zoom - I will be sending out links for those who respond to the survey link below on the 7th.   Please fill out the survey to indicate what you would like to get out of this type of community-building event. I am especially interested if you want me to turn this into an event that has CMTEs available - there will be a cost for the CMTEs but not for the Meets - anyone will be able to attend those for free at any time.   I will record these meetings, so you do not have to be present to get the CMTEs or to learn from us all.   Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJ9MN1I0ihNKshFw26LIf14SdOvp7f8rGwbgFPfRRRsRMLGQ/viewform?usp=sf_link Happiest of New Years to you and yours! I am sitting in my quiet apartment, looking at frozen r...

I get half a day off this week, disguised as a full day off because I worked an additional half day last week and will be doing the rest of the half day as a 12-hour day this week. I am not really looking forward to it, but it is a necessary thing, I guess. It was easier when I had my church job on Wednesday evenings and worked the extra hours during the entire week rather than having to sit through mindless and irrelevant meetings with the faculty. Alas, that is no longer the case since my Thursday evening job has turned into a video interaction, so I don't even have that obligation to keep me safe from the mindlessness. Oh well. During this four and a half day work week, I am going to be working on a new series of videos reserved completely for my co-workers' use. Since I cannot expand my services into individual sessions due to COVID restrictions and the schedule that I have for groups, I am facing lots of time just sitting being paid for doing nothing. This does not sit wel...

I really should know better than to set myself a creative goal and then publish it for others to see. That's always the time that I get caught up in my own issues and can't get things accomplished, but I do this over and over again! This is a lesson that doesn't stick in my brain for some reason. So, I relearn this lesson and then go out to do the exact same thing again...and again... I have made some progress on my current Composition File Folder project. I've put together two examples, have filmed almost all that I need to film, and tried to figure out how to take time lapse photos of the process. That last bit didn't work out as well as I would like, so I'm going to try some more photos as I work on the third example (there are six all together!). The actual project is coming along. I am almost to the laminating part! I still need the still photos for my TPT file, but that's the only thing that is keeping me from publishing the entire file.  Here are ...

I am starting the only full week of my Fall Break, so things are firmly settled into vacation mode as of NOW! I have decided to spend most of my break time working on a small business challenge (I referred to this a couple of posts ago...), and trying not-to-do any stressing about what I "should" be doing and not purchasing any type of school supplies (because I already have MORE than I need). I've managed to go to the Back to School displays at both Target and Walmart without purchasing anything but post-it notes (the one thing that I did need). I reached my reasonable post-it note purchase limit, so I have 10 days of possible temptation to work my way through before I am back to school! I finished the laundry yesterday (including the bedding!) and the dishes are about 60% finished as of this writing. I am getting ready to do things like vacuum and organize and re-do some things. I organized my paper stash yesterday, so it is now arranged in rainbow color order (ahh)...

The raw materials of making visuals Yesterday afternoon, I took it upon myself to sit down and work on the large stack of visual aids that I had been producing. I (goblin alert) should have been cleaning my bedroom, but I did get to that later on during the day. I sat down with my stacks of cardstock, my scissors, and my laminating machines, and I knocked out a bunch of projects - all while thinking a bit more deeply about the Therapeutic Function of Music model developed by Dr. Deanna Hanson Abromeit, Ph.D., MT-BC. I love the dichotomy that is often present in my life. I am sitting there, working with nursery rhyme songs, while contemplating something that I feel is the foundation of what I do as a music therapist. Theory and practicality - all in the same moment. This happens to me quite often. I may be internally reviewing the therapeutic function of music within a session all while saying things like, "Play with your hands, not your head," or "Hands on lap,...

Last week, my randomly selected song for this next series of Song Conversion Sunday posts was one that sent me into some deep thinking about culture and cultural appropriation and that has challenged me to think a bit differently about the music that I have on my iPod and how I use that music. Now, to start all this off, I am not an expert on culture, cultural appropriation, cultural misappropriation, or anything other than my own experiences. My own cultural experiences are that of middle-class, caucasian America. I am a woman, I prefer the pronouns "she" and "her," and I do not have to spend much time thinking about cultural misappropriation because my cultural background seems to be prevalent in the place where I live. I have never really thought too much about whether the music that I use in sessions is something that I'm taking from another culture and shaping it into something other than what it was intended for originally. I guess this is something to...

All journeys take unexpected twists and turns. I have finished my first music therapy challenge of the new year. I'm thinking this may be something that I pursue more often as the challenges that I have completed have really helped me figure some things out. The problem with challenges is that they illustrate to me just how much I do not know about getting to my destinations, but they all have served to illuminate a new part of the path. (I'm still very much mired within my mind map concept, and I'll be working on making that map a reality later this morning - I took an important step this morning on getting some roadside assistance, as it were, so things will be moving!) I made some good decisions and progress on my journey this week. I know what I want to do, and I have visualized my end goal. I know what I want to do with my time, my energy, my attention, and my resources. I know what I want, and I am starting to figure out the way I'll be getting there. St...

My major project this first summer break is reorganizing my living room/office space in my home. I have completely ripped my front room apart, and there are things all over the floor at the moment. I have piles of things to donate, to put back on the shelves, and to repurpose. I have my new desks in place with the bookshelves keeping them stable, and I am putting things in places that seem to make the most logical sense. For example, all of the file folder assembly things are in the same place and on the same set of bookshelves under the creativity desk. The reference books, compact discs, and some of the boring writing utensils are on the shelves of the writing desk. My goal is to have everything I need for my various interests within easy reach no matter what I am doing. I am also trying to keep the top of the desk areas (hollow core doors) as empty as possible to encourage me to engage in work on these surfaces.  At the moment, there is more stuff off shelves than on. Eventu...

Today is Monday and the 1st of May. Traditionally, this is the start of a strange period of time for me. I usually have some pretty weird things happen during the first three weeks of May. I'll not go into details here and now, but suffice it to say that this is always a time of turbulence in my life. Anyway, I have finally accomplished something that I've wanted to do since I first purchased my website, many many years ago. I have released a newsletter. Right now, it's not that visually stimulating, but it will get better as I figure out what I want it to look like. I decided to make it a quarterly newsletter and to feature things already on my website. (By the way, if you are interested, here's the link to the subscribe page .) I also made another small step forward towards my dreams of having a course business for music therapists - I finished the first round of requested revisions on my pre-approved provider application for the Certification Board for Music Th...

This is the week. I am going to send out the first edition of the brand new musictherapyworks.com newsletter. It is almost finished and includes a brand-new, never before shared therapeutic music experience, a before-seen blog post, and some details about products that I make for music therapists. I hope you'll subscribe for this newsletter (click this link to get to the form...). This is something that I've wanted to do for a very long time, so I am glad that I've finally taken the leap. I received my first revision letter from the Certification Board for Music Therapists. Inc. regarding my pre-approved provider status to offer continuing music therapy education courses (CMTEs). The requested revisions are very easy to complete and are good questions for me to contemplate. One of them is why offer only 3 and 5 options? Quite frankly, it was easier for me to think about them that way. That's the only reason. It's time to finish generating content for the CMT...