Thanks, everyone. Maybe I'll take a chance and order these. Hopefully if they do end up having a soft center, it will still be the same flavor. dlm2000 - You'll have to ask your son's GF if she's ever actually tasted them. I tasted one and I immediately spit it out it was so bad. My son said it has chili powder or somthing on the outside and it gets better the longer you suck on it.

We have a couple of dwarf redbuds. only been in the ground a couple years, so hard to give a full response. Of interest, locally, redbuds are nearly non existent in the area. Old timers refer to them as dead-buds, so there's something in this region, be it altitude, spring weather, winter wind, summer humidity...whatever. The spring of 2016 locally was brutal. Early warm weather followed by long lingering cool, damp, seasonally cold weather. local orchards were hard hit, certain crops locally were wiped put entirely (cherries, apricots, peaches, plums. only pears and apples had any harvest and they were down signigicantly). We have 5 redbud trres. Two recently planted dwarves, still under 3' tall, and two with trunks close to 6", ten to 12' overall size, and one weeping at about 5' tall. the larger trees and the weeper had very few flowers and took forever to leaf out...if you were impatient, you may well have yanked them. ultimately, they leafed out fine, so we'll see this coming spring. The smaller two looked happy as clams. they bloomed fully, leafed out as though there wasn't a single problem. Was this a size and protection thing? time may tell.

Guess what? I MAY have figured out at least part of the problem! @fig_insanity Z7b E TN, @portlandmysteryrose, @seasiderooftop, @Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley IF you have the on again, off again messaging issues, sign out of Houzz then sign back in. Until about twenty minutes ago, the only inbox I had was the fully blank one I complained about last night with no followers nor following. After signing out and signing back in...SHAZAM! I guess it reset and cleared my browser? I usually keep this and several other sites signed in as pinned pages on the browser I use for them so all I have to do is open the browser and they appear automagically.

@caflowerluver I am 99% certain that Costco Hearing Centers require appointments for new hearing aid evaluations so advance planning is necessary anyway. You may already know this but telling you just in case. These hearing centers seem to be really busy - well used which is a nice endorsement too. The hearing test and discussion of the different models / types available will take over an hour and I don’t think you can walk out with new devices. Like ordering glasses you’ll need to come back. During that second appointment, the settings will be tailored to your specific hearing loss ranges in each ear. Maybe @sushipup2 will speak up to correct or add any info that was different with her Costco hearing aid center experience.