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11 Days of Doing Something, The Hunt

Poverty and hunger has been my active cause for about two years. I frequently volunteer at the Food Bank of Delaware and I love it. It is a great feeling to know that you have provided someone with a meal that they would have gone without otherwise. Those who run the Food Bank strive to ensure that everyone gets the nutrition and sustenance they need. They even have a special program during the summer that provides meals to children who already participate in the school year free lunch program. During the summer these children often don’t know where their next meal is coming from, the Summer Feeding Program ensures they don’t miss these meals. I was encouraged to see that Poverty and Homelessness was the cause for Day Three of The Hunt.
delaware food bank group volunteer
The first challenge was to live below the poverty line by not spending more than $1.50 in one day. That’s the price of my mom’s cup of coffee at the convenience store. My house is stocked with food that no one under the line would ever be able to afford. I have running water, indoor plumbing, electricity and central air conditioning. I can only imagine what it must be like for someone who can’t afford to eat let alone cool and light their home. It seems impossible to live on such a small amount of money but this is the reality for so many people in the world today.

The Hunt’s second challenge was to donate 5 food items to a local food pantry which I will be doing on Thursday when I go in to volunteer for my weekly shift.

dosomething.org, the hunt, daily challenges

The final bonus challenge was to visit slaveryfootprint.org and find out how the products you use are connected to slave labor. I took the survey and was shocked by how tied up I was with slavery. Of course the survey is based mostly on assumption and cannot give you an exact statistic but it can open your eyes and make you more conscience of your impact.
slave labor

I’m really looking forward to completing the other challenges and viewing the photos and videos that people send in. I’m so excited with how many people are participating. They really are making an impact on their community.

DoSomething.org, the nation’s largest organization for teens and social change, has partnered with Lenovo, the world’s second largest PC maker who helped found the campaign last year, and Bing, the search engine from Microsoft, to launch “The Hunt: 11 Days of Doing.” I have been compensated by Mom Bloggers Club to share this information with you




DoSomething.org The Hunt for Social Good

“The Hunt: 11 Days of Doing” is a campaign started by DoSomething.org to spread the word about multiple issues that affect the world around us. “The Hunt” asks you to do different challenges everyday for eleven days, each one dealing with a different cause. This campaign strives to get people thinking, talking and doing something about key issues in today’s world and making their community a better place.
dosomething.org, the hunt, daily challenges
This campaign is in it’s second year and currently has over 16K participants with more joining every day. To get involved individuals sign up on DoSomething.org/hunt to receive daily challenges. The challenges are posted at 11:11 am EST online or can be sent to via text message or email. Anyone can participate whether it’s as an individual or as a group of friends, family or co-workers. Most of the challenges are incredibly simple and can be completed in less than an hour. They range from researching an interesting statistic and sharing through social media to going out and donating to a local food pantry or animal shelter.

photo courtesy of Flickr

By participating in the challenges, you have the opportunity to win some amazing prizes. At the end of the project, one person will be selected to win a $1000 scholarship for themselves and everyone else on their team. Everyday one team or individual who completes the ULTRA bonus challenge will receive a Lenovo Ultrabook. The grand prize winner or winners who complete the most challenges will be sent to Los Angeles for the 2012 Do Something Awards and be honored at the award ceremony and receive a Lenovo Ultrabook.

Though the project has already begun, you can still participate fully. By going to their website, you can see all of the previous challenges and submit your photos at anytime before July 23rd.

DoSomething.org, the nation’s largest organization for teens and social change, has partnered with Lenovo, the world’s second largest PC maker who helped found the campaign last year, and Bing, the search engine from Microsoft, to launch “The Hunt: 11 Days of Doing.” I have been compensated by Mom Bloggers Club to share this information with you.




The Funkier the Better

snow white poison apple pumps heels platformsI’ve said it so many times before, Sabreena is a jeans and tees kinda girl. She likes to make this simple style her own by adding little pops of color or design.  When Apparel Dynasty approached me to review their products I thought for sure their shoes would right up Sabreena’s alley.

Apple Radio Sneakers is what she selected from the entire crazy, colorful collection of sneakers, heels  and flats.  I thought for sure she would’ve picked pumps but these showed up and I knew she made the right choice.  The bright yellow looks great against her jeans.  At first I wasn’t sure about the quality. The strong rubber smell permeated the house for hours but as far as construction they are holding up well.  This style sneaker is all Sabreena wears so they fit right into her wardrobe.
yellow apple radio sneaker converse style
For a fun change to any girls everyday look check out Apparel Dynasty for fun shoes, scented shoelaces and now graphic tees.






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Check Out Her ‘Stash

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Let’s Talk About Sex Education, or the Lack of it.

teen blogger talks sex education, state of delaware pregnancy rates, std rates in teens

For the last few months I’ve been doing an outrageous amount of research for my bill for Youth in Government. I had to figure out what I wanted to change about the State of Delaware and try to create a law about it. While I was thinking about a topic I kept coming back to one issue, teen pregnancy. Delaware is 6th in the country with the highest teen pregnancy rates. After doing some more digging I found that states with Comprehensive Sexual Education have lower teen pregnancy and teen STD rates than those with other forms of Sex Education.

Comprehensive Sex Ed is taught throughout a student’s entire school career. It starts with lessons about bullying and inappropriate touching in kindergarten through second grade. Third through fifth graders will learn about the human body, body image, healthy relationships with adults and other children and identifying adults who they can talk to when they have questions about their bodies. In middle school they learn the standard Sex Ed lessons that most children are taught, with lessons about puberty, the reproductive system and different types of contraception while stressing that abstinence is the best option. During high school, teenagers learn about the importance of protecting themselves if they chose to have sex, healthy sexual and emotional relationships, pregnancy options, and symptoms and treatments for STDs.

What makes Comprehensive Sex Ed different from abstinence-only-until-marriage Sexual Education is the idea that we have accepted that some teenagers are going to have sex and that it is our job to make sure they understand how to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs. By teaching kids that abstinence is the only option, schools are leaving them open to STDs and pregnancies because they don’t know how to use or even obtain any kind of contraceptive. It’s better to be educated about the dangers of sex than to be kept in the dark and open yourself up to them. I wanted to make Comprehensive Sex Ed required in Delaware so that one day we could be like New Hampshire, with only 3% of all teenagers getting pregnant instead of our current 9%.

This is not a sponsored post. The information and statistics were gathered independently from professionals in the health and sexual education field by Sabreena to be used in her bill presented to “Legislation”.




Are Dad’s Able?

Sabreena has a school trip next weekend to Dover, Delaware for government that requires her to have some business casual clothes which she doesn’t.  For the last few weeks Melinda has been taking Sabreena to different stores looking for dress pants and other items but has  been coming up empty and we are now running out of time.

Since the trip is almost here and Melinda is going to be busy this Saturday watching her best friends children for the afternoon and I have ZERO plans I offered to take Sabreena clothes shopping.  Sabreena is 16 and a female and I am her dad and I offered to take her shopping.  HAHA, I am in big trouble because I don’t think Melinda trusts me to buy clothes that match or make fashion sense.  I feel shorts and a t-shirt are fashion appropriate for any trip to Dover, Delaware, kidding.

I am somewhat capable of picking clothes for the kids.  Just this week I got Shaun and Shae summer clothers online from Old Navy and Children’s Place.  Granted they are 4 and 8 years old but is the process really that different for a 16 year old?  I think HELL YEAH!!!!!

I used to always pick clothes for Sabreena but that probably was only until she hit the age of 10 or 12 then Melinda assumed full control of her clothing purchases.  I have actually taken Sabreena clothes shopping once about a year ago for sweaters and to honest it was pretty painless.  I do know that she is super SLOW in the dressing room and there is going to be a lot of trying on clothes this Saturday but as long as my iPhone is fully charged I should be just fine, I hope!

Please pray for me that I pick the right items so that Melinda doesn’t hurt me, LOL.

If you are a man do you shop for your daughter/daughter’s?  If you are a women do you let/trust your husband to shop for your daughter/daughter’s?










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Shae Has Expensive Scientific Taste

Last week I overhauled our fish tank and gave it a really good cleaning then filled it will all new fish. Our tank was in need of a do over.

Once the tank was overhauled we headed to the fish store and I let Sabreena, Shaun and Shae each pick a type of fish that they wanted to put into our fish tank. Sabreena chose two angel fish, Shaun selected two platies and Shae chose GloFish. I really don’t care about the cost of the fish and it’s only funny because Sabreena’s fish were maybe $3-$4 each and the same goes for Shaun’s fish but Miss Shae on the other hand selected fish that were $9.99 per fish and they live best in sets of at least 3.

The red, yellow and orange fish at the top are Shae's GloFish

After I saw they were $9.99 I asked the guy at the fish store why they seemed so expensive since they are kind of a small fish and I was told because they are the ONLY fish that are patented. GloFish were originally bred to help detect environmental pollutants. By adding a natural fluorescence gene to the fish, scientists hope to one day quickly and easily determine when a waterway is contaminated.

So not only did Shae choose a fish that was the most expensive out of the bunch but she also selected one that has a scientific purpose.










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Video Games Brought Shaun and Sabreena Closer

The other day I was on Facebook and heard someone mention a game called Skyrim.  I have heard about the game but didn’t know a lot about it so I asked Shaun and Sabreena did they know anything about this game.  The reason I even asked about this video game in the first place was because I was thinking maybe with all of my free time I would try a new video game to pass the time.  Funny thing is Sabreena did know about the game because a lot of her friends play it and talk about it all of the time but Shaun knew nothing.  The game is rated M for mature so maybe that is why Shaun knew nothing.

Sabreena then asked me could we rent the game because she really wanted to give the game a try so I checked a few Redbox Kiosks and found one with the game.  Now the second Shaun hears Redbox and games he wants to play as well but like I mentioned this game was rated M for mature so I need to be 100% what I was allowing him to play.  I told him I would need to watch Sabreena play the game first to see if this was something he could try.  After watching Sabreena play Skyrim I decided this was ok for Shaun to play so they began playing together.

Saturday night and most of the day Sunday Shaun and Sabreena each took turns playing Skyrim together.  Melinda and I were getting slightly annoyed because all they were doing was talking non-stop while playing the game but Sunday night I told Melinda this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because Shaun and Sabreena were spending time together hanging, talking and playing a game together and they weren’t arguing (not a lot anyway, LOL).  Not that they never talk or spend time together but it was kind of nice watching them sit on the couch together helping each other in the game.  When Shaun would get stuck in the game he would ask his big sister to bail him out which she was happy to do. 

I am glad I rented Skyrim for them this weekend because it was really cool to see them spend time with each other!!!! 










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Wordless Wednesday – New Driver

This picture says it all.  Sabreena got her permit to drive!










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Heavy Workload

Sabreena is working on her Junior year class schedule. This is what it’s looking like
AP English & Composition
Honors Pre-Calculus
Honors Chemistry
AP Biology
AP United States History
Honors Spanish IV
Drafting and Design CAD II
Art Fundamentals
heavy school workload
This is a full workload with no room for rest. If she were to drop the Art and extra Science she could take on different fluff classes like Study Hall, Food Prep or Wardrobe Planning. Yes Wardrobe Planning is an option at this school but there are no Computer Science courses available. She’s looking at a career in Engineering possible Architecture so I think too many fluff classes are going to hurt her in the end.







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