music, therapy, and me

Forgive me as I engage in some vague discussions about various topics that I do not want to publish... I have a decision to make about something going on in my life that will shunt me off into a direction different than the one that I have been envisioning lately. I have various and sundry things to think about, and I have to figure stuff out a bit in order to make this decision. When I am faced with critical decisions about my life and what I will be doing with said life, I have several systems that I use to make the entire process easier on me and my loved ones. Let's talk about those systems today... (I promise that this next paragraph will make sense - eventually. Just bear with me, okay??) I am a paper planner. I use my books in several ways - as a journal, as a calendar, as a task organizer. In the back of my books, I keep pages blank to use as needed for whatever else I need to work through. The books that I have currently are being used up as much as possible before I start...

... and I am sure that you are wondering? "What?????" Let me explain. Way back, many years ago, the Dollar Tree started selling die-cut collections of large visuals that had a common theme. I bought them all and then laminated them all. I have two file boxes full of laminated die-cuts that I have used over and over again for many years. My Dollar Tree no longer offers those packs of 10 die-cuts for a dollar, and I miss getting new die-cuts when I go to buy things for work. Oh well. Anyway, these die-cuts fit inside file folders, so the boxes that I have contain many themed collections to go with many of the TMEs that I have either created or adopted over the years. I have a folder with farm visuals and another one with continents. Chances are that I have die-cuts that work with just about every TME that I have designed to use visual aids. I also have three other boxes with other types of visuals, tools, and song sheets. I put them all into my car yesterday which opened up lot...

Well, everyone. My Wednesday was better than I thought it would be - the student who is giving me the most challenge was absent. The rest of the class was fine except for the BHT who spent the entire session on a cellphone with a client rather than encouraging the client to engage in music therapy. I have to talk to the principal about this... ugh. So, Wednesday went well. We have three groups today and three individuals, so it is a light session day. This means that I can finish the binder page activities that I am making for our classrooms. I can also keep working on the file folder activity innards (our post-graduate program is working on the file folder laminating - I have lots of pieces to cut out and add Velcro to before those folders come back to me - 75 folders worth! I have been busy with these things. I am currently contemplating how to distribute these binder pages and activities to the four classrooms that seem to need them. There are some things that will not really work f...

One of the best things about being a bit overly passionate about any one thing is that I can write an entire series of posts about the topic without having to think much about something to write every morning. My major issue with the American Music Therapy Association Professional Competencies is that there is too much room for interpretation. I understand the need for some flexibility within the competencies, but as they are written now, they do not meet the requirements for objectiveness, clear definition, and being able to be evaluated in a yes/no or pass/fail system. So, I completed operational definitions for all of the competencies from the perspective of my job in my facility for my interns. (Lots of "my"s, aren't there?) Operational definitions take something that has lots of interpretations and makes that something into a series of specific tasks/skills. I know that my list of definitions is not complete, but it works for my internship program. Here's how it ...

I am a non-digital type of person. While I love technology and use it for all sorts of purposes (ahem - music therapy blogger over here), I also strive to maintain healthy boundaries for my digital usage and consumption. I have not been as healthy with mindless consumption lately - and it shows - but one place where I remain firmly away from the digital lifestyle is my project and calendar management. I am a bullet journaler. I am also a decorative planner user as well as a project tracker. I am a journal hoarder. I have a different book and different style for each book that I use on a regular basis. I have many more journals that do not have a use yet - they just sit on a shelf in my office, awaiting their glorious purpose in my organizational quest.  A couple of months ago, I told my boss that I was bored with my job. I asked if I could get some funding to make task boxes for some of the classrooms. I started thinking about the types of projects that I wanted to make, and that l...

Today is the day that I write about the systems that I have in my life that help me do the job of being a music therapist. I have written many posts about various things that I do as a music therapist, but I am always interested in how others organize their stuff and their ways of doing things as music therapists. My primary ways to organize things - anything - include color-coding and thematic groupings. I use color to indicate some of these groupings so I can find things easily (or more easily, I guess). I also like to put things together based on how I use them. It is not usually evident to others why I have a classroom set of shaker eggs along with rhythm sticks and wrist bells grouped together in one box. For me, it makes sense because I use those instruments more than others. Other people do not always understand my logic, but my organization does not have to make sense to anyone other me. My current project (AKA, putting the storage room back together before 10:20 this morning) ...

I am an idea generator. I have more ideas than I have time to execute in my regular life. When I sit down and try to accomplish my ideas, I tend to get partway through the situation before getting to a place where I have to think a bit more about things before I can proceed. While I am working on getting things put together for idea #1, several more ideas pop into my head. It is a very challenging procedure for me that often leads me into feelings of inadequacy that can, at times, overwhelm me. Since this is something that is part of my regular way of existing, I have found ways to help me record the ideas for eventual manifestation. What I really need is the opportunity to not need to go outside my house to be able to pay for things so I can putter around in my studio until things get finished up! But, alas, like everyone else in this world, I do need to work in order to pay for my dreaming... I am currently working on task boxes and activities for my clients at work. My latest idea i...

Actually, that's not really true. I woke up at 3:40ish and remained awake. I wasted time on social media and have been puttering at home since then. It's been almost 6 hours since I woke up, and I have cleared off my sewing table, emptied two big boxes, and emptied nine little boxes into different storage. I also hung up a Star Wars poster in my hallway, and I intend on hanging another one by the end of the day. I have neglected the blog until now because I just didn't think about it. Isn't it Friday? If so, then it is time to talk about systems in music therapy. I am creating a new system in my home. It's an immense undertaking because I have so much junk and things that I have collected, so it will be a huge undertaking, to be sure. Here's what I'm trying to do... I want one of my bedrooms to be my music therapy room. It will be the place where I store my instruments, file folder activities, and extra music therapy things. Right now, I am collecting things...

It is Friday, and this is a late post because I FINALLY GOT SOME SLEEP! I fell asleep around 7:30 last night and slept until 3am, got up and used the bathroom, watched some videos until 5 and then flipped over and slept again until 7:45. I have a little less than an hour to get ready for an eye examination and blog and all that. I am still exhausted, but at least I was able to sleep for an extended amount of time. Having the occasional night where I do not get much sleep is not completely unusual for me, but two nights in a row is VERY unusual. I blame my depression (appears that I do this every summer with high temperatures and soggy air) and my current emotional state for all of this. Yesterday, I had a couple of wins. I was able to change a system where I really was getting screwed over as well as acknowledgement of a service delivery system that I organized for our new vocational program. I'm not sure that anyone other than the two of us who discussed this know that it is my sy...

My sister (who now reads my blog, apparently) is my favorite second grade teacher. Just wanted to say that up front. I am totally biased about who is Teacher of the Year, every year, because she is my sister and I've known her all her life. There you go. Now, today's post is inspired by my sister and by the countless numbers of classroom teachers who are currently working on making their classrooms into engaging and comfortable places for students. Some classrooms include complex themes, lots of different elements to go together, and countless dollars of teacher money spent on things that teachers feel are needed in order to promote a sense of love and comfort and engagement. There is lots of controversy in the teacher world between the decorators and the non-decorators about whether this type of environment is necessary, but I know many who just feel better in a coordinated environment. My sister is one of the thematic teachers. She has an overarching theme for her classroom e...

The most consistent system that I use in my music therapy life is that of color-coding. I color code file folders, storage bags, and everything I can possibly coordinate through color. Now, I know that not everyone can see and perceive colors. So, if you are someone who cannot, please know that there is an alternative to colors. That is patterns. If you cannot see the difference between yellow and blue, then use stripes versus plaid designs in black and white. There is no issue about finding the things that work for you - no one EVER has to do what I do in my systems - the point is to find the things that help you work smarter. For me, that's color and colored patterns (sometimes). Do you want a deeper dive? Here's why I use colors as my base system. Over the many years that I have been a music therapist, I have spent countless hours, words, and ideas about how I want to do things as a music therapist. I take bits and pieces of what I see and what I like about things, and I mak...

First of all, I want to start this blog off by saying that everyone in my life (as far as I know) is alive. I wanted to put that out there at the start of this blog because there are some pretty significant things happening in my family that are going to be stressful but this is not a blog post about dying. Here's the deal. Last night, my sister called me with some news about our brother. The details of all of this are not really important. What I am trying to get myself to focus on right now is the fact that up until that phone call, everything was settled in my life. It was the last day of my work week, I was talking to my Mom who was pretty chirpy on the phone, and I had spoken to my sister who was the same way. We were all in a pretty good space. Then, things changed. After I spoke briefly to my sister, I waited a bit to call my Mom. My sister felt that she needed to talk to Mom about what she had heard, so I started to dither out here. I was crying, I was raging, and I was no ...

As I am rooting through all of my stuff - break is almost over and things are a mess here - I have found that my organizational style is that of grouping or organizing by category. I tend to think of function or when and where I use things as my categories, so I have everything that I need when I am doing a particular thing or am in a particular situation. My categories do not always make sense to other people (as evidenced by how my sister set up my kitchen versus how I am changing what she has done into what I want to do), but they make logical sense to me, so I continue. The cabinets in my music therapy space are a perfect example of how I organize things. I have four large cabinets in my music therapy room. Each cabinet has a function. One cabinet stores all the string instruments that I have in my practice. The guitars, ukuleles, and violins live in one place so I can access them when I need them but can contain them the rest of the time. The second cabinet stores all of my manipu...

I have a positivity system that comes into full necessity for weeks like this. It is my Daily Happiness system that I use in my personal social media accounts. I woke up this morning in the throes of nightmares. I know that this is the direct result of the school shooting in Uvalde, the cumulative shootings happening around the country, and being alone during my break, but that doesn't make going through nightmares any easier. I never remember my happy dreams - just the ones where I am attacked and running away from danger. So, when the anxiety dreams rear their ugly heads, my positivity system comes in handy. Now, there are many discussions out there about toxic positivity and denial and all that stuff, but I have found that my system does me good, so I keep up with it. Without it, I tend to get overfocused on the negative things that happen around me and then that is all that I see - the negative. The negativity settles over my eyes and everything is viewed through my negative le...

I had my first in-person internship applicant interview since late 2019 yesterday. This is the type of internship interview that I really prefer because it gives me an opportunity to see the applicant interact with my students. It also gives the applicant an opportunity to see how I work and what my students and facility are actually like before they commit to a seven-month stint as my intern. I know that my insistence on such a visit is something that is financially difficult for some applicants. I may not get as many intern applicants because of this requirement, but I feel that it is better to know exactly what you are getting into with my facility and my students and, well, ME, than it would be to be completely surprised and find that my facility and program are not AT ALL what the intern wanted. Could you imagine? I clearly spell out the expectation of an on-site interview and audition in my fact sheet, but that requirement has still surprised applicants over the years. I can'...

It is almost over...Star Wars week, that is. Oh, also, Teacher Appreciation Week is almost over as well, but that's almost secondary to the first celebration in my life! I love all things Star Wars, so this has been a good week for me. I started a new thing in my favorite system of all time - my bullet journal! I tend to use my books until I fill almost all the pages, and it was time to change from my current book to a new one this week. I have filled up my yellow book with weekly planning calendar spreads and notes and things that I feel are important to know about, and I decided to start up my new book for the month of May because...well, it is Star Wars week, and my new journal is a Star Wars themed journal. I am focusing on a different character each week. I found a list of characters from the Star Wars universe, used a random number generator, and now have a different character to research every week. I am trying to work on my drawing and lettering and just making time for doi...

Oh me, oh my. At the start of this calendar year, I decided that I needed to get a grip on my visual aids. I have an extensive collection of things that I use with my clients to increase the possibility of understanding and communication within the music therapy session. This collection has come about due to love for teacher supplies (can't walk past a bulletin board display without taking a long, close look), my love for papercrafting (also really love drawing and making things), and my tendency to be a pack rat (love me some paper, markers, tools, and visuals for songs - what can I say?). I have so many visuals that I was really unable to keep track of them all, so it was way past time to find some sort of organizational system. My first step was to establish a place to store things. In my office, I have a series of built-in shelves that are awkward for instrument storage. They are just not the right size for many of the instruments that I need to use. They reach from floor to ce...