music, therapy, and me

There are two good things about this Halloween - first, it falls on a Friday which means that I will be at home when my clients wake up from a fun-over. I do not have to wrangle them into post-holiday music therapy sessions after a break in their schedules. The second thing is that I live in a part of town that does not have many kids, so I do not have to buy any candy to hand out. In fact, my lights will be turned off this evening. I am not a fan of this holiday, so I am thankful it is almost over. My Halloween sessions have gone over with a resounding sigh this week. No one has been really interested except for the last two groups which means that I finally got into my groove during the last two groups. I have ideas for how to make my Halloween carols a bit more interactive for those with limited communication opportunities, and I will put them into place to release on TPT before Halloween next year. I love it when ideas pop into my head this way! I do not have a costume. I think I w...

Well. My intentions to write everyday is already threatened by my summer way of doing things. I did not get up until later than usual and am sitting upstairs 9 minutes before I usually leave for work trying to make my brain work. I am struggling to do anything that makes any sense at all, and I have run out of all my sick time for this year, so I will have to get to work. I don't want to go.  "That client" is coming in today, and I am just tired of having to do therapy over screaming and tantrums. I am overwhelmed by "that client" and the response to ANYTHING I try - it is always the same - screaming, tantrum, safety assist. I am starting to dread any day where "that client" is scheduled for music therapy. Someone outside of my program suggested that I should do MORE, individualized music therapy for "that client." I flatly refused. I am not going to set myself up for significant injury by taking someone who hates music therapy for more music...

Here I am, sitting at my desk in a hazy mental fog caused by taking my medications 2 hours late due to my 12-hour work day yesterday. I have to report early for physical behavior management training and CPR (again! I did it in November, but they have decided that I have to do it again - I am not happy). After that, we have a faculty meeting and a pizza luncheon sponsored by the Executive Team. I am not able to participate in food-based events due to a strange response to the water in the town where I work. So, I will make my appearance and then skedaddle from the lunch. I am curious to see if anyone from the Executive Team will actually be at the luncheon. I forget how much my medication affects me until these days. My eyes don't focus right, and I am overly tired until the medication wears off a bit. It is always interesting to track when my medication wears off. I feel more pain but my brain goes faster and processes information better when it reaches its end. I fully credit this...

It is time to figure out something to think about right now... On Tuesday morning, my intern opened his office and then came to my office door. "Mary Jane, did you know the ceiling fell down?" "Nope." Sure enough, there had been an air conditioner leak situation and ceiling tiles were in a soggy mess on the floor and dripping from bowed tiles that hadn't yet broken. There was a huge puddle on the ground, and one of my cabinets was directly under the drip that just kept going over and over and over. Ugh. It was not the way I wanted to start my week. It was an absolute mess, and I know our maintenance guys pretty well, so I started moving things out of the closet into the main room so we could start the process of drying out. There was water everywhere, and things were completely soaked. Some of my electronic toys and music games were immersed in water, and other materials had to be tossed. I have learned several lessons from this situation that I would like to sh...