music, therapy, and me

I did not do much this weekend as far as making things was concerned, but I did start two presentations for our conference in two Saturdays from now and worked on the books that I have in progress, so that's something. I started a course on Skillshare all about digital marketing. It is 12 hours long, so I have lots to do with it, but I think I will make this part of my evening routine. I have been having some trouble sleeping lately, and I think it has to do with how I am spending much of my leisure hours. I am going to try an experiment to see if I can get to sleep more easily than in the recent weeks. It is strange that my sleep schedule is so messed up, so I am going to try to reestablish a routine again. I am a month into my retirement break, and I feel the need to do more than I am doing right now. This was part of the plan to take time off before heading back into the workforce, but I am starting to itch a bit about going back to a work routine. My problem is that I don't...

Today is the Monday before Thanksgiving - a forlorn space in a school therapy setting and twice as challenging in a school space in a psychiatric residential treatment facility like mine. There are two days before a five-day weekend break from school, and that causes additional problems for the staff who are required to work the holiday and for those of us who are required to leave. It is always an interesting time, and I am going in to do ten sessions with students and staff members who are not happy to be doing anything. I am debating what I want to do this week with my clients, and I think I have decided that we will throw splash balls at drums. This tends to be a good, non-speech centered TME that allows us to hit something that will not hit back and that can allow us to express some of our frustrations. I will get all of my drums out, and we will throw balls and continue until we are tired. It is a low planning, high reward type of TME, and it requires very little preparation on m...

I am currently trying to figure out how to release a free file to all of you, but I am getting bogged down in the details of how to get this going. I have the file ready, but I am unsure how to get you to that file. I can do it through a quick website update, but I need some time to do that website update. This is causing me to change some plans, but that is fine. Anyway, is anyone up for a November freebie? I am going to release information about a free resource this week. I am. I just need to get things organized on my side of things. In the meantime, I am getting ready for (ugh) Spirit Week and Halloween at work. I am going to share my Halloween resources with groups this week after we talk about our October Musicians of the Month. I have books, carols, games, and all sorts of Halloween-ish stuff. I am working on the pattern for a Halloween lapbook, but that will probably not be ready to share by Friday. It is spurring my creativity, though. I love lapbooks, but I haven't produc...

It is official. Today is a second snow day. I am stuck at home because the snow is still very high at my house, and my street does not get plowed. I am not sure if I will get out by tomorrow, if we have a regular day. My car has a low profile, so it is difficult to get out of the garage and street if the snow is this high. I do not want to end up blocking the street with my little car. I've done that before, but in a bigger street area. If I block things on the street that I am on now, I will block off at least three neighbors and keep them from getting where they need to go. I can't do that, so I might have to take personal time this week until the snow is melted down enough. Today is a dually challenging day for my family. My father died on this date four years ago, and my mother has a birthday today. We have grief and celebration on our minds today. I tend to focus more on Dad on January 6th so I can focus on Mom on the 7th, but it can be difficult at times. It is easier whe...

Dearie, me. It is already Friday, and I have blogged about three or four of the last seven days here. I am getting closer to figuring out what I want to start writing about as themes (which is something I find I need in order to keep going with music therapy related topics on this blog - otherwise I end up just babbling on and on and on...). I am wondering if writing about composition from a clinical perspective would be something that would help me figure some things out. I used to write monthly therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) for sing about songs , but I stopped doing that on a regular basis a while ago. It would be nice to get back into writing music as a part of my regular routine. So, how about Songwriting Sundays? (I like alliteration, so something with an "S" at the beginning HAS to be on either Saturday or Sunday - it's corny, but it makes my heart happy, so...) I enjoy writing songs. I enjoy making things up as I go along as well. So, having a songwriting to...

It is 4:30am, and I've been up for an hour now. This wasn't planned or desired - it just happened, so I am trying to wake up and think at the same time. As I woke up, I heard some thunderclaps, so I might have been awakened by the rain that is going on right now. Who knows?   I have been spending some of my non-client time engaged in thinking about the hidden curriculum present in my internship program (I wrote about this on Monday in this post , if you are interested in knowing more). I have spent some time refining the skills that I want an intern to possess before they start my program. I am developing interview questions to help me identify some of these skills. I am going back and thinking more about what I think being a professional in my work setting means - the skills and responsibilities of being a professional. What I am finding is that my interns do not have some of the essential tools that I think they need to be successful music therapists later on. As we are all a...

It is Thursday. I am trying really hard to be thoughtful today. I spent time yesterday involved in a very loud drumming group with a bunch of very cooperative students who responded to the iso-principle in front of the principal exactly as I hoped they would. Everyone got a drum when they entered the room. We drummed loudly and enthusiastically until we tired and then engaged in active mood vectoring until everyone was happy and content and quiet! The principal got called out of my session after 20 minutes, but that is the longest time that my recent administrators have spent in my room, observing my music therapy, in about 15 years! He was complimentary when I saw him in the hallway later. I always approach these formal evaluations with a bit of bemusement. I have never had a supervisor who was a music therapist. I have had three out of my seven supervisors who have worked with other music therapists so had a smidgen of knowledge about what music therapy is supposed to be. For most of...

As a well-practiced music therapist who has been a professional for 28 years (yep, I am THAT old), I no longer write session plans. I gave up that particular assignment as soon as I possibly could after finishing my clinical practica because it never worked out the way I wrote it so it was an exercise in busy work for me. NOTE: Now, if you are currently a student and having to write session plans, please continue to do so to get your grade and please your music therapy supervisors. Just know that there will be a time, after you get your degree, where you can do what works for you instead of what others tell you to do. I do not write session plans. Instead, I focus all sorts of thought and energy on my therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) and develop them well past what I did during my undergraduate years. This means that I have TMEs that I can print off to show other people what we are doing in music therapy if they ask for them. I don't have to have a session plan. I encourage my ...

Today is a day where writing is not coming easily to me. I can usually sit for a time, write a couple of paragraphs, and find my way into various ideas and topics, but not today. I've been staring at the blinking cursor, using the backspace key, and eliminating entire posts because they just aren't interesting me. I know that this happens to other people who write as well, so I'm not really worried, but I really don't like this feeling. I'm even struggling with coming up with my personal happiness statement. Nothing seems to be motivating me today. I'm not sure why, but I think it may have something to do with my upcoming vacation (which is both a source of distress and eustress) and seems to be taking up my entire life at the moment. It is certainly taking over my thoughts which are darting from place to place and task to task. It is interesting that writing lists (my usual way of quieting a busy brain by putting things on paper) is not really working to ...

Today is a day off from work. During our Extended School Year, we have school from Monday through Thursday, and we have Fridays off. During the summer, I have the luxury of three day weekends - something I really enjoy. During the rest of the year, I have one day weekends, so three days is a mini-break every week. I love this schedule and would love to have it all the time (I've tried to figure it all out, and it doesn't work for our contracts...). Anyway, today is a day away from work, but it is not a day of rest. Today is the day that everything has to happen. I have a new washer and dryer set coming sometime between 8:30 and 10:30, the new cat sitter comes to check us out at 11:00, and I have lots of laundry to do (because of the need for the new washer and dryer) as well as about seventeen errands to do as well. Everything happens today. I've spent this past week getting back into the routine of working. I arrived early every day (not good for me or my morning rou...

I have an affectionate cat sitting between me and the computer this morning. She is demanding attention, and I am trying to write. It's not a preferred situation, but it is a typical one for us. What she doesn't realize is that I just got a wireless keyboard, so I can write even when she is sitting between me and the com01p1111uter (she still has access to the laptop keyboard, obviously!). She is currently staring at something that I cannot see - it's freaking me out a bit, but that's cat for ya! We've had a strange week - one full of little annoyances that have become bigger worries because of other things that have happened. She didn't eat for two days (not like her AT all), I've been battling extreme exhaustion, the wireless mouse stopped working, it is a very long work week this week, and numerous other things that have gone on in this very long week. To top it all off, it is the week before Spring Break, so we have lots of emotions happening around ...

This is not a good sign - I am not interested in blogging this morning. Usually I get out of bed and look forward to writing something to post, but I am not finding things to be interesting right now. This may be a side effect of my recent illness, but it is not something that happens to me regularly, so I am a bit concerned... I've had one of those strange virus type things that are going around out here. It was not pretty, and I spent two and a half days at home from work last week because I could not get away from the bathroom for more than 5 minutes. I've eaten very little since Tuesday, and now I am trying to head back to work. I have to be there this week, but my stomach and gut are still iffy and I want to be careful not to get sick again. I have things to do this week and next, and I want to be healthy for those things. So, I am working on my self-awareness and self-care. One of the things that I try to think about often is my "self." This sounds a bit sel...

I am starting the end of the first week with two interns! I haven't done this is in a long time, and I am having to change up lots of the things that have become a pattern with me. This is a good opportunity for me to evaluate what works and to try new things, so I'm going to do just that. My bullet journaling set-up is changing because my senior intern is running her own groups right now. I no longer have to strategize for every group and individual session that happens. That changes the space that I need in my book. I've decided to try more creativity in my journal and to actually use color in that book as well. Before now, I've stuck with pencil so I can erase. I'm trying to be bolder right now...color is where I'm starting. I'm finding that I need more things to do while I'm watching and listening to my intern running her groups. I'm doing lots of sitting rather than running groups, and that may be some of my exhaustion. I'm not doing wha...