Wedding!

Our wedding was absolutely wonderful! I thought I would share with you guys a few pictures our friends took!

The whole day was just amazing! During the Mass after Josh and I said our vows we were kneeling and we looked at each other and said, "Woah, did we just get married?!" It went by so fast, but it was so fun!

We both feel so incredibly blessed to be able to get married surrounded by our friends and family! I don't think we can ever say thank you enough for everyone's love, support, gifts, prayers, and generosity!

The weather was absolutely perfect that day, the Mass was beautiful, the music was amazing and the reception and dance was so wonderful and fun!

We went to the Bahamas for our honeymoon, which was an adventure that I will save for another day!

My career journey

I love music therapy. Music therapy has my heart. I have my MT-BC credential. Im getting a Master's in Music Therapy...so why am I also getting a Master's in Counseling? For several reasons.

The first time I considered doing the dual master's program was during my undergrad coursework. I don't even remember what course I had to read this article in, but it definately made an impact on me: Levels of Therapy: The Classification of Music Therapy Goals by Barbara Wheeler. I realized that what I really wanted to do would require some additional training.

Then I did my internship and was touched by a child who had experienced some severe trauma in her life. The trauma was pretty obviously the cause for the developmental delays.But since it was in a school district the focus was academics and language. Nevermind the fact that she had been working on these academic goals for 3 years without much improvement. We were not allowed to address any trauma and the school district was not addressing the trauma either. It broke my heart. I also realized that with my undergrad training as a MT processing the extreme trauma would have been outside my scope of practice. I also realized that I wanted to be able to do "deeper therapy."

My first jobs as a music therapist were.....pretty awful. I will not go into the specifics, but they were pretty horrific. I quickly burned out. Looking back, it still the events still make me sad. It also makes me sad, that there are many MT-BCs who have similar experiences. Why is that? Music therapy is such an amazing and beautiful therapy. Why do so many of us have to defend what we do day in and day out to parents, teachers, adminstrators, legislators, friends, doctors, OTs, etc. etc. you get the idea. Why are there mostly companies that don't pay fair wages or force us to have sessions in closets? I could go on and on, but I will stop there.

As I have gone through the counseling program, I really enjoy counseling. It is the "deeper" therapy I wanted but I miss the music. I so much miss the music. Unfortunately the dual program only allows the integration of MT and counseling in the last internship, so I have spent the last 3 semesters without music therapy. This summer is my last internship!! I am excited to see how I can integrate music therapy into counseling!

While I am excited to see how I will incorporate the two disciplines, I cannot put aside my passion. My professional paper is a comparison of hospice music therapy articles and hospice counseling articles. I read these articles and some days my heart really yearns to be able to work in hospice, to be a music therapist. Today is one of thos days. Maybe one day I will work in hospice as a music therapist. Maybe not, maybe I will be a counselor that incoporates music therapy into my counseling practice....

I leave you with this: Music therapy provides something very desirable in a hopeless or extremely unpleasant and undesirable situation. Music therapy has always been a profession in which its practitioners 'stand in the gap' to accomplish what cannot be done better in any other way. Music therapy interventions go far beyond the music heard on the television or a radio at a bedisde, sometimes referred to by nurses as 'music therapy.' When implemented by a skilled professional, music therapy contributes markedly to physical, psycholgoical, social, and cognitive functions for those requiring interventions. -Alicia Ann Clair

Shoes

So today I attempted to find the perfect pair of shoes to wear on my wedding day....this was my 3rd attempt. I must confess that I absolutely HATE shoe shopping. This is for 2 reasons: 1. I wear a size 7 and have extremely narrow feet. This means that most shoes do not fit my feet. If they are narrow enough they are usually too small and too wide if they are long enough. 2. I cannot walk in heels. I have tried to learn, I really have, walked around the living room and read extensive articles about the art of walking in heels. The problem is that I am extremely clumsy and have very little balance standing flat foot. This is also the reason that I do yoga in my home from a video and not at a gym or yoga place...but I digress. Back to shoes...so I can wear a small heel and by small I mean 1 inch or less. The quest to find wedding shoes is also slightly complicated because I refuse to wear plain white shoes despite my mother and josh's requests! I also will be spending the entire day in these shoes...this IS a Mexican wedding...so they need to be somewhat comfortable, or at least tolerable for 9 hours. Also since there will be lots of dancing I don't want sandals or open-toe shoes. I learned from my quinceanerra that my toes need a little protection from my drunk relatives! :p My mom and I found a SUPER cute pair of sparkly shoes a few weeks ago. The problem is that they are flats and so when I put them on with my dress, my dress dragged on the floor and I tripped. Not really the way I want to walk down the aisle. So there you have it, I need shoes with a small heel, covered toe, not plain white (or black or beige), cute, size 7, narrow, and comfortable. Now is that really too much to ask for? I think I might have found a pair, after going to about 8 stores. I showed them to Josh and he said "you are such a hippie." I hope they work...mom will be up next weekend and I will try the shoes with the dress then for my bridal pics. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Countdown

On a lighter note....I'M GETTING MARRIED IN 18 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

All Life Is Precious

After hearing the news of Osama Bin Laden's death...I was conflicted. I am human and I am American. A part of me felt extremely relieved that his reign of terror had ended. But mostly I felt sadness. I am sad that people are rejoicing over a man being killed. I am sad that killing OBL was in all reality the only way to end his reign. I am sad that countries often have to result to war and killing.

It also leads me to the idea of being pro-life. Being pro-life doesn't just mean not supporting abortions. Pro-life means believing that ALL life is precious. Young, old, priests, mothers, fathers, and even murderers and terrorists. Being pro-life means not supporting abortions, the death penalty, euthanasia, murders, and war. I do not feel that it is my place to pick and choose whose life is important and whose isn't. ALL life is precious and all human beings deserve to live from conception to natural death.

Do not get me wrong, I do not support murder! There are consequences to our actions and thats what the justice system is for...thats another topic for another day...but too wrongs do not make a right....ok I'm done with that.

Also do not misunderstand that not supporting war means I don't support our troops. Far from true, they are seperate topics. I support our troops who fight for our freedom day after day and make sacrifices that I cannot even dream of. Like I stated earlier, it just saddens me that sometimes our world comes to war.

I feel extremely blessed to be surrounded by friends who are amazing people and Christians. It is nice to know that I am not the only one to feel mixed emotions about the recent events. Here are some quotes from my amazing friends via facebook.

"Are we seeking power for power’s sake? Or are we seeking to make the world and our nation better places to live. If we seek the latter, violence can never provide the answer. The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." ~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them." Proverbs 24: 17-18

"Let us give thanks for Presidents Bush and Obama and their relentless pursuit of this terrorist and others who jeopardize our safety and the safety of the world. Let us give thanks for the members of this Navy Seal team that carried out this operation—and give thanks for their safe return. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.Let us pray that this will unite our nation, rather than continue to divide us because of political or religious or racial differences. Let us pray that, as one of our Bishops prayed this morning, “this will bring closure, and that there will no longer be retaliation upon retaliation upon retaliation.” Let us pray, as we have been taught through the Scriptures, for peace."
~First United Methodist Church, Monroe, LA

"Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of everyone before God and man, and hopes and pledges that every event is not an opportunity for a further growth of hatred, but of peace."
~Fr. Federico Lombardi (Official statement from the Vatican)