December Highlights

Usually at the end of the month you review the highlights that happened to you. I'm doing it backwards. I am going to share with you what I'm looking forward to in the next month. As all of you know, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season. Since you all will be expecting it I will get it out of the way first so I can have your undivided attention for the rest of this post. I am looking forward to Christmas and everything that comes with it such as decorating, my house smelling like pine, and Christmas songs. I like the Christmas Eve service with lighting the candles while singing silent night and driving around looking at other peoples industrious decorations. I like presents. I like eating lots of food and baking lots of desserts. Along with the holidays I love New Years Eve. I like playing games, staying up till midnight, and eating jalapeno poppers.
Alright now the expected is out of the way. I used to write a lot of email updates and send them out to my friends and family regardless whether or not they wanted to read all about my goings on. Over the years, my updates have waned to several a year. This year, I am very excited because I am going to send out my very first Christmas newsletter. Hopefully, I can figure out how to put in pictures where I want pictures, but if not it will be all text.
I have a week break from school, which is just what I need. I do school year round so I don't often get breaks. Today in fact, I'm starting my first session of my last class before my internship.
I am over my NaNoWriMo attempt for this year and am looking forward to doing some real writing on a book I have been working on for a long while. I need to just finish it. I like this story a lot and I do want to finish it because it just might be the best thing I have ever written. I also want begin editing a children's story that I finished in September. My free time will diminish as the new year begins so I want to get what writing done that I can, while I can. Also along the writing vein, I am researching digital audio recorders.
I could go on and share many other things that I'm looking forward to in the coming month, but most of it has to do with eating and friends. Those are always some of the best points in my life. Take a second and let me know what you are really looking forward to in December.

Recognition

We all want recognition of some kind. When you spend hours working on a project at work, you really want your boss or at least a coworker tell you what a wonderful job you did. If you show up on time for every class with your homework completed well, it sure is nice when someone notices and comments about it. Children often beg for recognition. they may call your name repeatedly until you praise the picture that they have worked so hard on or the ball of play do they carefully rolled. Besides big projects and hard work we like recognition for other things as well.
On Friday a friend of mine who is a cosmetologist put red highlights in my hair. I stipulated that I wanted them to be visible, but fairly natural and I didn't want them to stand out too much. And that is what I got. Indoors it is difficult to see the highlights, however in the sun they look coppery. Most people have not noticed my highlights. But that is not good enough for me. I find myself resisting the desire to tell everyone about my highlights. I want the recognition for the difference in my look. I really dislike being fussed over and I don't like being the center of attention, but I still desire recognition and attention for things I have accomplished or that I have changed. I think we all desire this. It is confirmation that we have value to other people and that we are noticed by others.