Maroon 5

Maroon 5 used to be one of my favorite bands (when the only two albums I had were Songs About Jane and It Won't Be Soon Before Long). I found a lot of their lyrics to be honest, true, and deep. The music was fun and addicting. Let's take "The Sun", from their 2002 album Songs About Jane. The lyrics "and I cannot remember what life was like through photographs..." and "trying to recreate images life gives us from our past and sometimes it's a sad song..." are spot on to how I feel sometimes. The music part of this song is a relaxed, laid back feel to it. For me, this song (the whole album for that matter) is 1 million times better than the recent songs by Maroon 5. "Moves Like Jagger" and "Payphone" seem very generic, lazy, and thrown together. They seem as though not much work, thought, or effort went into creating these songs. I guess Maroon 5 had to keep up with what the majority of people like... which I guess is generic, uncreative songs about sex.

Rant On

There are a lot of people I have heard in the past that have complained about how rude and mean other people could be, yet those people who are complaining aren't the ones attempting to make a change. Open the door for another person, smile back at someone. Do not not acknowledged them. Treat others as they-and you are-human beings.

Some days I think back to when I was younger and I think about how I perceived  other people. It has changed.

So many songs available today are, in my opinion, not true, passionate music-like it should be. The lyrics are the same, recycled lyrics but in a different wording. The music part of the songs are upbeat and fun and great dance music, but the lyrics are not encouraging (a lot of the time) and aren't the best. 

Trying Out Salon Effects

I recently tried out (for the first time) the Sally Hansen Salon Effects. What these are are real nail polish strips. There are certain steps to follow in order to ensure the nail polish strips correctly attach to the nail. The hardest part of the steps, I found, was the last step. The step is to file off the excess strip after attached to your nail. Any way that I tried to file it off, it would not file off. So what I ended up doing was gently tearing the excess off. I looked for some reviews for this product, and also noticed other people had the same problem that I did-that the excess strip would not file off.

The price that I paid was around $9. I think that that is a reasonable price for a salon-looking strip. But I honestly would not suggest buying this product for a one-color look that you can achieve with nail polish.

I chose the Girl Flower design, in which I must say I really, really like the design. The bold, bright colors and the flowers are beautiful. I am pleased with how they turned out, but it took me almost 2 hours to get the strips on. Maybe it took me that long because I usually do not paint my nails (the number of times I have painted my nails total in my life could be counted on two hands, probably).

There are a few other designs that I like and might try.

The design on the left is the Girl Flower design I chose. Beautiful, huh?

Exclusively Pumping Tips

There really is not that much information available for those women who choose to exclusively pump breast milk, so I thought I would give some tips that helped me personally. Hope it helps!

Exclusively Pumping: using a pump to extract breast milk, replacing actual breast-to-baby breastfeeding (what it means to me).

When I was asked if I gave my baby "breast or bottle", I would get frustrated. "Both! I give her breast milk in a bottle," is what I wanted to say. But because I had to choose one, I would check breast, because I was not giving her formula at all.

• Pumps

There are several options when it comes to breast pumps, which is great. Someone once told me that when they had a baby, the only pump available was a hand-held pump. Nowadays, there are manual, battery, and electric pumps and one breast and double breast pumps. 

The pump I used was an electric double breast pump from Medela. I loved this pump. It had different speed and suction strength options. 

I also had a manual (handheld) one breast pump from Medela that I would take with me when I went out in public in case I needed to have a pumping session (and I did several times-this pump was also great and came in handy so much).

Medela Harmony Manual Breast Pump

The Medela Harmony Manual Breast Pump is available at a low cost and at many places. You can click the links below and a new window will open up. 

Where to purchase the Medela Harmony Manual Breast Pump:

Target

Babies R Us

Medela  

Bed, Bath, and Beyond

Wal-Mart
Amazon

Medela Lactina Select Breast Pump

When exclusively pumping, owning/renting just a manual (one breast) pump will not be adequate to provide enough breast milk. Breast pumps can get pricey, but there are places that offer renting a breast pump (a deposit may be required). I would recommend checking out your local WIC office for breast pump rental options. 

Where to purchase the Medela Select Breast Pump:

Amazon

Sears

And, as I mentioned, try your local WIC office. Click below:

WIC State Agencies

WIC Home Page

WIC Breastfeeding Program

And, here are some more links on where to buy breast pumps:

Babies R Us

Medela

eBay

Wal-Mart

Target

• When to Pump

Basically, each pumping session will be replacing a breast-feeding session. Pump when your baby eats.

If there is not a certain pattern to your babies eating, here are some tips that I received from my local WIC office. When to pump may be different for each mother, so ask your local WIC office or doctor for more information. 

This advice was given to me while using the Medela Lactina Select Breast Pump. They recommended that I pump for 15 minutes each session (each breast being pumped for 15 minutes) and that one session should be held every 2-3 hours. So, let us say that I pumped at 8 a.m. I would pump until 8:15 a.m. Then, I would pump again at 10:00 a.m. because, as recommended to me, I would start my two hour wait from the beginning of the pumping session. Let us say that I pumped at 10:00 a.m. From 10:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., I would be pumping both breasts. At 10:15 a.m., I would stop pumping and then put away my breast milk in the fridge in a proper storage container. I would then pump again at 12:00 p.m. This is on a 2 hour schedule. 

Of coarse, it may be different for every mother, so definitely ask a professional. 

• Storing Expressed Milk

When pumping, handling, and storing expressed breast milk, you need to be safe and sterile.

With expressed breast milk, there was a "5 rule" I learned from WIC:
After expressed, the breast milk can be stored for

5 hours at room temperature

5 days in the refrigerator 

5 months in the freezer

This was just a quick, helpful tip that allowed me to remember off the top of my head when I should discard breast milk, but the storage life of breast milk does get more technical. For this reason, I have included some links with helpful guidelines given.

CDC 

KellyMom

Kids Health

Megan and Liz: "Wanted" (Hunter Hayes cover)

Megan and Liz are two talented 19-year-old's. Their most recent cover was uploaded today. I have never heard of Hunter Hayes, but I really liked the song. It was beautiful and the lyrics true.

"I want to feel wanted" is summing up what has been on my mind the past few days.