Vota!!!!! Early Voting Starts Today!

Early voting starts today for the March 1st Primary Election in Texas!  Vote, vote, vote, Mamas!

And It's Also....National Condom Day!

Can we get some rubber love?  Condoms help us protect ourselves from diseases and unwanted pregnancy.  Keep it covered, kids!  No glove, no love and all of that.  Here is a link to some information about condoms from the CDC:  http://www.cdc.gov/condomeffectiveness/brief.html

Feliz Dia de La Amistad!

May your day be filled with love and friendship!!!!!

21

Our marriage is old enough to legally drink - although we do not.  Does this mean our love is intoxicating?

Happy Anniversary, Lone Star Pa!  Pins!

Turtle Girls

 Last weekend, we took the Girl Scouts to the Padre Island National Seashore Park to hear a presentation from a Park Ranger who is a turtle specialist about threats to the sea turtles.  Our fifth graders are going to do their Bronze Award on helping the sea turtles and the fourth graders and Cadettes are doing some Journey and badge stuff that ties in to the topic.  After the presentation, they scouted a stretch of beach where they are planning a beach clean-up later.

Wednesdays with The Subversive Children's Book Club: Sex Education

In honor of Valentine's Day, this installment of the Subversive Children's Book Club will be the annual Valentine's Week Installment on Sex Education.  If the rates of sexually transmitted infections among young adults are any indication, at least one in two sets of American parents are seriously falling down on the job when it comes to sex education.  In states like Texas, where schools are required to teach the highly ineffective "abstinence only" version of sex education, there is no one to take up the slack when parents flake out on this.  Knowledge is power, people.  Don't leave your kids with helplessness instead.  Mom up - it's your job.  Below are some very useful classics. 

Enjoy.

 

• It’s So Amazing:  A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies and Families by Robie H. Harris
• It’s Perfectly Normal:  Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health by Robie H. Harris
• The Period Book: Everything You Don’t Want to Ask  (But Need to Know) by Karen Gravelle
• What’s Going On Down There? Answers to Questions Boys Find Hard to Ask  by Karen Gravelle
• The Care And Keeping of You:  The Body Book for Girls by Valorie Schaefer.

SDG Mondays: Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable and Modern Energy for All

Good Morning!  Today we focus on the 7th of the United Nations' new Sustainable Development Goals:   

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

This goal has five associated targets:

• "By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services

• By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix

• By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency

• By 2030, enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technology, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and advanced and cleaner fossil-fuel technology, and promote investment in energy infrastructure and clean energy technology

• By 2030, expand infrastructure and upgrade technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all in developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States, and land-locked developing countries, in accordance with their respective programmes of support."

What do you think of this goal and its associated targets?

What might you do to help reach these targets?

For me, I intend to campaign and vote for candidates who support clean energy.
 
 

Wednesdays with The Subversive Children's Book Club: Black History Month 2016

In honor of Black History Month, this installment of the Subversive Children's Book Club features books about important events and people in African-American history.  Some are non-fiction and some are historical fiction about true historical events and movements, but not necessarily real characters.  Enjoy.
 
Primary and Lower Elementary 

• If A Bus Could Talk:  The Story of Rosa Parks by Faith Ringgold
• Ruby Bridges Goes To School:  My True Story by Ruby Bridges
• Sugar Hill:  Harlem's Historic Neighborhood by Carole Boston Weatherford
• The Case For Loving by Selina Alko
• Sit-In:  How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney
• A Sweet Smell of Roses by Angela Johnson  

 Upper Elementary

• The Watsons Go To Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis
• The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine 
• Moses:  When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford
• Fires of Jubilee by Alison Hart 
• Sugar by Jewell Parker Rhodes
• From Slave Ship to Freedom Road by Julius Lester 
• One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

 Teens

• My Mother The Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow
• Jefferson's Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
• Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Patillo Beals.

I Am A Delicate Tropical Flower, Phil

I understand that the weather rodent did not see his shadow today.  There is hope!

Register to Vote Today! Deadline for Primary Election!

Today is the last day to register to vote if you wish to vote in the March 1st Primary Election (either one of them).  Register by 5pm!  Vota!