music, therapy, and me

Well, it is Wednesday again, and I have been up for a very long time. For some reason, I woke up in the midst of hot flashes that just kept on going and going about 1:30 am, so I've been awake for a long time already. Two lines of thunderstorms have come through my area, so it has been an interesting morning already. Wednesdays are when I take some time to reflect on what I am reading, but it really isn't all that interesting, so I am going to veer a bit away from all that to my current reading quest. About three weeks ago, I signed up for a library card for my town library. I went inside the library to get the physical card, but I am going to use this library card more for the digital resources it provides than the physical books - mainly because I hate going downtown to get to the library. There is just too many people downtown (it is our touristy place in my college town), and the roads are one-way until they aren't, and I just don't like the situation. There is a pa...

Well, hello heat advisory #1 of the 2024 summer session. I have seriously NOT missed you so far, and I wish that you would fade into obscurity sooner than predicted because you make me absolutely miserable in so many ways! It is hot here. It is hot most places, but I am most concerned with the 50-mile radius that I travel through every work day. There is no air conditioning in my classroom, so I cannot get away from the heat when I am at work. It just makes me tired, cranky, and too exhausted when I get home to do much of anything. I was proud of myself yesterday when I got home, cooked dinner, and stripped the bed upstairs to be washed and dried in skin-friendly manners for my super sensitive guests who will be arriving in (gulp) four days. Today, I will be washing the bedding for the library room so I can move into it and prepare the music room for one of my guests. So, for after school today, I will be making the bed upstairs, finishing the bedding wash/dry cycle for the bed downsta...

It has been two weeks since I offered a position to an applicant with no response. The applicant has two more weeks to accept the offer, but I am not sure that the applicant even received the offer. I guess I will resend the offer letter - just in case. I hate the waiting times that are involved in this set-up of ours. I have to wait until the applicant answers. Then, I have to wait for the internship agreement from the university program. Then, (and this is the hardest type of waiting that there is) I have to wait until the student intern actually starts! I am very thankful that I do not have an intern right now. The temperature in my music therapy room is very hot right now, and there is no fix in sight. My mother and my sister are very angry about this fact and keep telling me things to do that are not really feasible. I am tired of being hot. It really saps my energy and my attitude is not a happy one. I know that my seasonal affective disorder is worse in the summer than in the wi...

Oh, dear.  My to-do lists are getting longer and longer every moment as I sit in my office and look around all the stuff that is piled in somewhat organized piles waiting to be placed in other places. I am experiencing a bit of overwhelm right now. I have already started a load of dishes, had breakfast, dithered around and around, figured out driving times for an upcoming trip, and am now sitting down to write this post. I tend to get bogged down in planning rather than the doing process - especially when it comes to cleaning and clearing! I want to organize, but I tend to stuff things rather than take the time to organize. So, today will be another experiment. I have nine plastic totes - the bigguns - that I am going to use better. My most recent water accident has shown me that plastic totes are better than the boxes, so things are going into plastic totes. I want to label what is in each tote as I put things in. I have some 4X6 index cards that I will use. I can also scan those ...

I am gearing up for some self-care things later today. My Thursday afternoon meeting is cancelled to accommodate some "team-building" activities tomorrow that some of the team (ahem - the school therapists) are not invited to attend. So, I am going to use the meeting time for some self-care of my own. A large part of my self-care routine at the moment is finding a cool place to be. My room is not any cooler with the fans that have been installed - the fans just move the air around which is helpful but doesn't fix the broken HVAC system. My body does not handle heat well - it never has - so I tend to be overly tired and headachy at the end of every day. Ir is not a super comfortable situation. In fact, I am starting today with a headache which is also pretty typical for the summer months. I am thankful that I have a working AC system in my car and here at home. So, I am going to come home a little bit early and cool down in my space. I will also spend a bit of time trying ...

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 ...

It is time to bring back a chart that I have used many times over the years to illustrate how I use music while songwriting and while working with clients. This is a way of thinking that I really defined for myself when I was working as a Teaching Assistant many years ago, and it has stuck with me. If you have ever studied the Therapeutic Function of Music as defined by Deanna Hanson-Abromeit, then you have an idea of where I am going with all of this, but I take a little different view on what the Therapeutic Function of Music is for music therapists and music therapy clients. The picture below is of the graphic organizer I use when I am thinking about the Therapeutic Function of Music. Now, I use this chart when I am composing as well as when I am using the music composed by others. I do not usually start with this chart, but I always end up using it at the end. This is the best way for me to think about the musical options that are available to me as musician and music therapist. Th...