A little while back, a friend of mine was in need of a kidney donation, and just hearing about her waiting game was stressful in itself. I so admired her bravery through that whole process. As it turned out, her husband donated his to someone else, and in turn, she was able to take advantage of a kidney donation chain. It worked out so well for them, thank goodness! 

Now, there's even more good news about how Facebook may be helping others track down kidney donors. In a study of almost 100 Facebook pages set up for the purpose, researchers found that nearly one-third had potential donors step forward to check if they were compatible, and one in eight actually found a donor this way. Awesome!

Kids are sweet, adorable, and fun, but they also have a well-deserved reputation for sending your sex life into a death spiral once they show up. There's the lack of sleep, the fear of getting interrupted just as things are getting good, the fact you probably don't feel as great about your body as you did before kids, and on and on.

And let's face it, after you've been with your partner for a while, sex becomes less spicy than it did when you were first together.

All that adds up to a pretty lackluster sex life for the average mama. But you can and should find ways to get your groove back, and this edition of The Kristen Chase Show has some suggestions. Here's a peek (with some ideas of our own) ... and don't forget to subscribe to the CafeMom Studios YouTube Channel for more ideas!

When it comes to making school lunches healthier, there seems to be a lot more talk than action going on for the most part. Everyone seems to agree they need to be more nutritious, but cafeteria trays remain filled with unhealthy fare. A 9-year-old in Scotland, however, got some swift results recently when she took to her blog and totally exposed her school lunch program for it was providing -- food that that seemed to contain more hair than vegetables.

Eww, I know ... which was exactly her point. It only took five posts on her blog, titled Never Seconds, before Martha Payne started attracting international attention for the ratings she was giving to the food served in her cafeteria each day. Her first entry was posted Tuesday, May 8:

A teen has found the cure for a condition that affects every single person on the planet -- hiccups.

While my teenage babysitter's loftiest goal is being like Kim Kardashian, 13-year-old Mallory Kievman has invented a candy called "Hiccupops" that gets rid of the world's most annoying affliction. She came up with the recipe when she was plagued by the hiccups a few years ago.

What Briana Delcampo is doing for 18-month-old Isaiah Hernandez would be an incredibly selfless act for anyone at any age. The fact that Briana is just an 18-year-old girl makes her sacrifice nothing short of heroic. 

At the end of this month, Briana is donating a kidney to little Isaiah, who was born with end-stage kidney failure and has already spent more time in the hospital than the average adult. He was just months away from needing dialysis, the prospect of which set his parents on a desperate search for a kidney donor.

Said Isaiah's mom, Terri Hernandez:

"He needs a kidney transplant because being on dialysis is very hard on the body, especially for a baby."

West Coast Avengers cover with
Hawkeye wearing a hearing aidLittle Anthony Smith was absolutely sure about one thing -- superheroes did not wear hearing aids. So when his mom Christina D'Allesandro asked the 4-year-old to put on his hearing device -- which they dubbed "blue ear" because of it's color -- he naturally put up a fight.

She told him that crime fighters did in fact wear hearing aids, but Anthony wanted proof. As with most good moms, Christina didn't give up. She emailed Marvel Comics to see if, on an off chance, there were any superheroes who fit the bill. "I am likely to get stuck in your spam filter," she wrote from their Salem, New Hampshire home. "But you never know..." The long shot paid off.

Taylor Swift might just be as sweet as she looks. The country pop singer has always loved her fans, so much so that she's still surprised that the audience likes her, but this story goes to show just how genuinely grateful she is for her admirers and for the troops.

Corporal Josh Marreel uploaded a video to get Taylor's attention, but he didn't want concert tickets or for her to be his date at a dance. Instead, his motivations were entirely selfless -- he wanted Taylor to know that 22-year-old Sergeant Wade Wilson, a Marine killed in action in Afghanistan, was a huge fan of hers. Wade had a poster of Taylor in his bunk and really loved her music.

Taylor got the message, saw the video, and decided she wanted to honor Sgt. Wilson in a big way.

Last year, Lands' End held its inaugural National Swimsuit Confidence Week, and convinced nearly 100 bloggers to post photos of themselves in their swimsuits.

I have to say, I LOVED the result.

Not many of us are thrilled with the way we look in a swimsuit.

Seeing so many women dare to put photos of themselves in a swimsuit online for all the world to see made me feel a lot better about my own body, in a way that seeing photos of models like the one to my left do not.

So when I was asked to participate in this year's National Swimsuit Confidence Week, I took a deep breath ... and said yes.