music, therapy, and me

I am leaving home - probably for the last time - to travel across our country via car. I have significantly more stuff in my car than I did when I traveled towards this destination, and that is making me laugh. I have about five new toy xylophones to add to my collection of toy xylophones. I have a bag and a box of turn of the 20th century antique sheet music. I bought a cookbook, two books on lettering styles, and lots of fiction to add to my collection. My sister and my mother (AKA my enablers) gifted me with a set of colorful Lummi sticks (think smooth rhythm sticks that people use to make rhythmic patterns including tossing to one another. I am taking home all of my father's Echo dots (they creep my family out), a speaker set that I gifted to him before he died (never opened and made him cry), his robot vacuum (which also creeps Mom out but that I think she would love if she actually tried it), a new laptop (which my business bought when my Chromebook gave up the ghost), all so...

Recently, I have gone into a pattern of not writing ideas or songs down. This is great for my improvisational skills, but it is not great for my therapeutic music experience (TME) compendium. It is time to be a bit more intentional about my composition and TME development. If you have read any of my previous TME Tuesday posts, then you know that I have an organizational system for my ideas. I have a structure that really works well with my brain and my way of doing therapy. This system requires that I think through all sorts of musical and therapeutic elements to coordinate session strategies with specific clients. Now that I do not have clients, I have time to compose and write TMEs down again. My current focus is the two upcoming events through my company, musictherapyworks.com, LLC. One of them is a conference focused on working with adolescents and the other is a creative endeavour that includes making visuals for use in sessions with clients . These are both things that I enjoy c...

... 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...

I am a creature of habit. I like structure, I like routine, and I like it when things progress the way I have planned for. I do not do well with surprises or with changes at the last minute - ESPECIALLY when those changes did not have to be last minute at all! For example, I have been told by people moving into my office space that I have to give up that office space, but my supervisor has not told me of this development at all. This is not how I like to operate. One email would confirm that I am moving from that space and consolidating into my other space, but no. That doesn't seem to happen all that often. It amazes me how little people think about the ripples that spread when they make decisions, and it also amazes me that we do not take the time to talk to the people that are caught up in those ripples. I am often stuck in the riptide caused by other people, and I often do not know why I am swirling around. Today, though, I have to put that aside and work on my home environment...

It is Friday, again, and I have been to work for an entire week, again. We had a blizzard on Tuesday evening that made for slick roads on Wednesday, but school went on as usual, so I traveled through the ick and the slick in the gusty winds. I didn't get an afternoon off as planned due to the weather on Wednesday, but I did get an extra half hour to plan yesterday before being surprised by an extra client in my last group of the day. Anyway... Today's topic is my collection of collections - some things that give me great joy and that I have incorporated into music therapy at times and that I continue to try to justify (even though justification is not necessary when something gives you joy!). I am a collector of things. It is part of my packrat tendencies and my generational urge to keep things that most people consider to be trash. I have lots of things that fit into different collections. I have my Disney Pop! collection, my mini brands Disney collections, my toy collections,...

Last night, I had an insomnia night. This is probably because I went off my allergy medications (I ran out) but these happen every so often even when I am not coming down off my allergy medication side effects. I have learned not to fight these nights. They go much better when I just use my time and don't stress about not sleeping. I will be heading to work with limited sleep, but that's okay. I decided to do a low demand session format. I did not set up my centers. I just did not feel like I could do it this week. I just did not have the interest or the energy after missing two days of work this week and missing a school day last week (the other day I missed last week was an inservice day). To add to the entire situation, I am still having some side effects from my medical procedure last week, and I also have lots of unknowns happening as well as a result of said procedure. So, a full brain, limited sleep, and a low demand session series ahead of me lends itself to an interest...

Sorry about not publishing my writing for the past couple of days. I have been hot and crabby and nothing that I have written has been something I want out in the world right now. I have entered panic mode about the state of my home and the upcoming visit from my family, but I am also stuck working in a room without ventilation, a broken air conditioner, and clients who are unable to regulate their temperatures. I leave my job everyday absolutely knackered and cannot bear to work when I get home. I have finished the first half of my week and am now entering the second half. This week, we have been doing centers - they get kids close to the floor where it is a little bit cooler, and it offers opportunity for independence and leisure skill development. We have three stations, and I have "must do" and "may do" things at some of the centers. We have a music symbol matching game and a stack of performer pictures to peruse at one center. The second center is a fine motor ...

I didn't get a post in early this morning because the Online Conference for Music Therapy took over my brain and my to-do list, but all of that is finished for the day, so I thought I would try writing in the afternoon. I don't often do afternoon posts, mainly because I am more likely to be able to sit down and write in the quiet pre-dawn hours, but today is an exception, so why not? I spent my early morning hours going through several of the forms and emails that I have to send out over the next seven days, and then finished up my "work" time with a training for some of our presenters. I got to train a music therapist from Norway, one from Greece, and another from Japan - all from my home in Kansas, USA. I love this form of interaction, and I am very grateful that I can participate in things like the Online Conference for Music Therapy, Inc. I would never have "met" many of the music therapists that I have interacted with around the world otherwise. I ca...

How it's going! So, something that I know for a fact but that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable is that I have too much music therapy stuff. (Is anyone shocked by this?? Anyone?) I keep finding stashes of visual aids and PECS and things that I have made or accumulated over the years. Each time I find some more, I get a bit more frustrated with myself. This is a never-ending situation I find myself in at the moment. I found another box yesterday - full of baggies of visual aids that are not corralled anywhere, so they are not useful. There is nothing more frustrating to me than non-useful things taking up space - AND, that's ALL that I have around me! Non-useful things taking up space. A long career as a music therapist means that I have lots of things to go through and either find uses for or give away to someone who can use them. I need to get in touch with the local music therapy university programs to arrange for some donations. I wonder if they would take communication...

Egad. I am currently a bit overwhelmed and engaged in a slight anxiety episode about all the things happening in my world right now, and the post that I started today was not helping me out, so I am back, writing run-on sentences and manifesting my anxiety through writing. Deep breath. I notified my rental company that I am intending on leaving at the end of next month. I am not sure why this is causing me so much anxiety, but it really is. Everything is going like clockwork, and that is scaring me. At the same time, I am very excited and cannot wait to be moving into my very own home. Then, I look around at all the stuff that I have to pack up and actually move. I am going to pay for the moving part of things, but I need to pack as much as I can before the professionals arrive to move me. If things go as planned, I will have four days to move some things over to the house before the movers move me, so I should be able to get things packed up or toted over if I cannot pack them - like ...

Yesterday, I gave myself a day away from content production and allowed myself to work on non-video projects. I also allowed myself to wallow in any emotions that arose without worrying about whether my red, swollen eyes would be distracting on camera. Today, though, I need to get my content production up and going again. I have posted four of my videos this week, and I want to finish up four more by the end of business today. For me, I find that the best way to create content is to just sit down and do some singing into the camera. Some of the things that come out of my mouth are old, familiar songs that I have know forever, and other things are completely new! Since most of the therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that I do with my clients incorporate lots of client direction, most of our "regular" interactions are not easily transferred to preproduced video segments. I have had to think about what I am doing for all content to avoid situations where my clients cannot respo...

The day after Christmas is always one of reflection for me. I do as much as I can to enjoy the actual day itself - not many pictures or rituals other than the ones that my family has always completed - and very little in the way of cataloging or thinking about work stuff. The next day, however, I am usually awake way before any other member of my family - two hour time difference, and I don't acclimatize to sleeping in well - so I spend most of my time thinking about the holiday and about all the things I want to get finished during my break from work. It almost always includes things for work as well as thing for my home - which is currently far away from where I am.  Today's reflection is coming from a place of jet lag. I have five days of being here with my family - loose plans for two of those days - lots of time of shopping with my mom and my sister - we have a deal: I go to two stores without complaining. After two? They can either put up with my crankiness or take me...