Mother’s Day will take place on May 11th and while I’m not a huge fan of the whole “Corporate America wants us all to honor our mothers on one day each year” thing, I do agree that doing something a little extra for your mom is never a bad thing.

From my experience, no matter how old you are, moms love it when their kids make something for them. Often times it’s difficult to think up something creative to do for your mother, so I thought it’d be fun to start a meme to help get the creative juices flowing.

Tell me about three things, in detail, that make you really appreciate your mom!

Be specific! Think about all of the things your mother may have done for you: things she may have sacrificed, times when she went WAY above and beyond for you, etc.

To kick things off, I’ll go first:

1. My mom worked at a job, which she hated, for employers that didn’t treat her respectfully for 16 years, because that’s what had to be done to help provide for us.
2. She refused to raise a son who couldn’t iron clothes, do laundry, cook a meal, sew on a button, etc. Because of her determination, I have never been completely helpless and grew up feeling more independent.
3. My mom stood by my dad during some very rough times when they were newlyweds. Why is this important to me? Because her selflessness prevented my sister and I from growing up in a split-custody lifestyle. Her dedication to my father taught us about unconditional love, commitment and the importance of family.

Your turn! Leave me a comment and let me know that you’ve done this meme, so I can check out what you wrote!

For the month of August, I’m taking part in the August happiness challenge.

Normally I pass on a lot of the blog memes and such, but this is one that I think would not only be fun, but who doesn’t like to be happy? When someone I know is happy, it makes me happy.

So, for day one, I’ll write about books. I touched on this topic last year and with the recent hysteria over the final Harry Potter book, it’s brought to my attention just how much fun books are, and what lengths people will go through to get their hands on a book that they really enjoy.

I guess this could be considered cheating, but I pretty much said all I needed to say about why I enjoy books so much and why they make me happy in my post “Books boggle my mind“. My only regret is that by the end of the day, there’s very little time to devote to reading without depriving myself of sleep.

I was tagged by Logtar:

First the rules

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are the random facts about me!

I…

• drove home from work yesterday on an entirely new route.
• was scared of Mighty Mouse and E.T. when I was about three years old
• usually listen AC/DC’s “Back in Black” when I work out.
• have had a goatee since 11th grade
• am scared of the dentist
• have become addicted to the show “Scrubs”, thanks to Keli
• like watching old Fred Astaire & Bing Crosby flicks like “Three Little Words” and “Holiday Inn”
• am a huge fan of all things related to the show “Firefly”

Logtar started a fun little handwriting meme.

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Here’s how Logtar explained this particular meme:

A pangram is a sentence that contains all letters of the alphabet. Less frequently, such sentences are called holalphabetic sentences. One of the most famous one being “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.” Here is more info about pangrams, but the object of this meme is just to see your handwriting.

Go ahead and get a piece of paper, then write the sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.” Sign it with your first name or your handle (not your signature) and take a picture. Then post this and your picture on your blog!