RETIRED: Target Chit Chat

hi! just noticed those posting about quiting smoking. Just wanted to say kudos to that. Its amazing, once I got out of my childhood house and wasn't around all that smoke...When I would go back to the smoke it was like someone was strangling me.
As of right now, its the bad smell, the dulling of your taste buds, the cough, the cost of the cigs, and the stress your mind and body goes through when its time for its next "fix, but big costs start soon enough.
Hope this story helps motivate someone out there.
My grandmother, the strongest women I ever meet, she raised me and I got a first had look into the subject. She retired only to be too sick and broke to do anything with her new time. She didn't even get lung cancer anything, this was just standard lung and heart damage do to the smoke.
It started with a triple bypass. Which after the recovery, I overheard her saying that it was so painful that if she of known how much, she would of rather of died then have the surgery (remind you, this women was no stranger to coping with pain and struggle) She would go on to have blisters on her leg the rest of her life from where they took the vein to fix her heart. Then she was given a oxygen tank she had to wear. A portable one and one big one for home.
As a short time went on, she was buying no less a grocery bags full of meds a month. Among some of the meds I remember most were:
steroids she had to take to allow her to breath but caused parts of her spine to deteriorate, in turn cause great pain and trembling. She stopped the steroids, and she would not be able to breath, so as she took them they did more damage causing more pain.
Then there were the pain meds she had to take to help offset the discomfort. I believe these were the meds that caused her the most stomach issues. (though it could of been another medication I don't remember, she had so many and each had their own nasty side effects) This not only caused her pain, but troubles with what she could eat, how much and when. Also, when you cant walk from one room to another because your breathing is so limited you have troubles making it to the bathroom in time, this makes even small stomach issues a problem. Even with a walker she had to sit and rest on her way to any room. (Add in the daily cost of depends to the running tab of monetary and emotional costs). Depends aren't fun anyways, but cleaning yourself and changing your depends after diarrhea accidents make it even worse.
She had an machine that pumped out a steam of medication she had to take orally every so many times a day. This caused the corners of her mouth to be raw and sore all the time. If the electric was out for any reason, this caused an emergency phone calls to have to be made so her machines could go back on. A respiratory therapist also had to the home often, and she had to see someone about her heart all the time too.
Her breathing got so bad that being around her was like watching someone have an asthma attacks lasting all day, with full blown "she's not going to make it" attacks thrown in often. It was hard to watch, and sadly most of her grown kids didn't come to visit nearly as often as they should of. I think what made it worse was that in the beginning they had her on this medication that had some pretty serious emotional side effects. Depression, crying, even hallucinations in a otherwise perfectly healthy mind. Everyone seemed to find plenty of reasons to do everything in their busy lives but visit her. Even though she was eventually off those meds, damage was done and the tone was set for the rest of her remaining years. Avoidance seem to be the way the family was dealing with it.
She was retired with a savings but when she dies she was on food stamps. we had to take out a loan to pay for her final cremation. It took 5 years for this to kill her. She died of a final massive heart attack (from complications of emphysema) at age 69. I found her in her chair, with her medication machine in her hand. I still dream of her, and that it's all just a big mistake and she will be at my wedding one day. I cant even imagine how it is for the families of those with lung or mouth cancer, etc. Unimaginable. I know other things can kill you, but damn. Thats no reason to find and do as many of things as possible you know. Plus add up the cost again and again..not just the cigs that you (and possibly your kids if they follow by example) but the cost of the meds, medical bills, machines, etc.

Once you get those chemicals out of your body the better. Addiction to substances those causes stress mentally and physically. Who needs more stress?
Dont borrow cigs from anyone, dont "just finish this last pack" etc. figure out what works for you. your breaking a chemical habit and behavioral one. figure out what to do with your hands..etc. talk to your doc too, insurance covers lots of stuff, even some meds that help. My mom took one that even helped curb her appetite so that was a bonus. Good luck!!

Ah Macaroni.... you made me

For you and your grandma... and myself...

My father died at 64 of emphysema and mouth and lung cancer... his last words to me before he slipped into a coma, was please (my name) stop smoking I don't ever want you to go through this and take care of your Mom... everything you said medical wise, my dad had to go through as well...it was horrible to watch. He did pass away though with all his family and BFF beside him, he had slipped into a coma the night before. He too fought this for along time. they told him in 1988 that he had about 6 mths to live, He died in 1992.

He died 16 yrs ago on my daughters 15th birthday and your story stirred up alot of memories.. good and sad..

My brother died 5 yrs later at age 46 - 2 days after my bday. He died from esophagus cancer. A 3pack a day smoker.

I only kept one of those promises and that is taking care of my Mom.. I have still yet to quit..

I hate smoking... I hate the taste ( I have to brush my teeth after every smoke) I hate the smell ( have to wash my hands and face after every smoke) and I have to have a drink or gum while I'm having a smoke, can't just smoke a cig without something to take the taste away - it is gross...

It is definately an addiction - but you bringing up your story has touched my heart again, and the promise I made to my dad. Now for him and my granddaughter (I've basically raised her and still am as well) you have me making an appt. for my doctors..

I did go on some anti depressants that are supposed to curb the crave (it worked for my old boss) but it gave me serious headaches so I went off it.
Will check with the doc about something else. The patch or gum never worked.. but then again you really have to want to quit or I don't think anything will work.

Thanks for reminding me of a sad day many years ago...

I am so very grateful that my dad stopped smoking so many years ago. So grateful that I can't even express how much.

Ok, since I use Adobe Ilustrator and/or Photoshop to pull the graphics out of an original pdf what should this be called? If I use PS the pdf is rasterized. If I use Illustrator and save the graphic as an SVG then what would you prefer me to call it?

I am heading out on vacation next week-- we are driving from Texas to Minnesota. FUN!!! Does anyone know about the stores in St. Cloud or Brainard Minnesota?

Quiet day today. I'm going to T tonight with mom to do the pampers deal and an average run. Thanks to everybody for their help. I didnt' think I'd be buying diapers (Mom's getting a shower gift...).

Ok, I feel like sometimes all I do is b*tch, but I just need to vent. I freakin hate the morons I work with. I'm the scheduling manager, and these stupid f*cks do not get the concept that it is not MY fault if they don't request off for the correct days. It's a simple concept, if you need saturday off, request saturday off, not sunday!!!

Does anyone else have to deal with this stupid crap?? How do you handle it? They have all decided they don't want to work Sundays.. uhm then get a job that doesn't require it!!

Sorry, I'm done.

so this is kind of strange.
last october i bought a vsmile and some games for it, for my son. he wasn't mature enough to play it yet so we just put it away for a while. we broke it out for the first time a couple weeks ago - and the controller that came with it has already stopped working. the green power light on the system goes out when we plug it in, like it's shorting out or something (but the system and game continue to work fine). so after following all the trouble shooting stuff in the manual we still can't get this controller to work. gah!!

luckily we'd bought an extra controller, so we opened that and it's working just fine. so the problem is with the other controller - not anything that's wrong with the system itself. its just very weird because basically it's still brand new and has no physical damage at all. (so likely just a defective product kind of thing, it's literally only been used for maybe a week and a half before going on the fritz)

we bought a 1 year warantee for the system, so we can get a replacement for the controller that's not working. but get this - the rep actually told me that i have to send in the entire system including the joystick and they'll replace everything. i even told them it's just the joystick that needs to be replaced - the system is fine.

isn't that a bit of a waste of money for their company to not only ship product that doesn't need to be fixed, but ship back out a replacement for it when it didn't need to be replaced? (they are paying shipping both ways)
not only that, but these things take a couple weeks to get the replacement back - and that wait time really sucks. we have to be inconvenienced and not have the system for that time when there's nothing wrong with it. what a pita!!

i'm thinking they probably do this to avoid people getting replacements for parts that didn't actually come with the original system. i guess i'd thought they have identifying numbers on the joystick to match it to the system it came with.. but apparently not. for ours it's easy to tell - the one that came with has a stylus, and our 'extra' controller we bought separately does not.

so.. i'm thinking of just scrapping this claim for the joystick. too much hassle to get the controller replaced. i thought i'd only need to return the non-working component and get back the replacement. but instead have to return the whole she-bang for a $15 joystick.

we're going on 3 weeks now to get our xbox 360 back since it got the 'flashing red rings of death.' i just can't see going through that same long process for another game system that only cost 1/6 of what the xbox did.

flashing red rings of death on the xbox 360 is an automatic 'free' 3 year warantee from the manufacturer - a random defect in the hardware that effects 3 - 5% of their products. for our replacement we'll need to pay $30 to get that same warantee again. (which sucks but still better than paying $300 for a new system if we get the unfixable error again)

for the vsmile, the 1 year warantee only cost $5 - so at least if it doesn't get used i didn't go too far in the hole by purchasing it. still, i'm a bit bummed that the process to get another controller seems not to be worth the effort. (if it was the system, yeah it'd totally be worth it.. but not for the controller)





anyway.. so does anyone else have frustrating stories with electronic warantees?

I spent about $75 at Target last night on panties I needed new panties

I guess I average about 75% at Target. But if it helps

snip

Let me know how it works out for you. Good luck and happy shopping!

I spent about $75 at Target last night on panties I needed new panties

This close to the SAS at VS?? I really hope that you got some awesome deals... If not, you could prob scope out the "left over" sale at your local B and M... I just totally scored at mine...