Ilene, I think George is growing Moon and Stars, and someone else may be as well. When I have grown Moon and Stars, I've gotten large (20-30 lb) melons with a very dark green rind with the bright yellow moons and stars (many more stars than moons). The flesh has been a fairly bright red (not pink) in the case of original M&S or bright yellow that is almost a golden organgey-yellow when growing Yellow-Fleshed M&S. The flavor of the red-fleshed one is very much a true, strong watermelony taste that is sweet but not overly sweet. The flavor of the yellow-fleshed one is a bit more mild. When I grew the yellow-fleshed one, I am almost positive it had white seed. So, I am not sure if you have a different strain, or crossed seed or what, but your watermelon sounds different from the ones I've grown. The blue rind question baffles me. Every M&S I've ever seen has the rind that is a dark blackish-green with the gold spots. I have heard some people describe the dark green rind as 'purple' and I don't see that either, but assume the rind is so dark that they are seeing it as a purplish-black. One problem with knowing what to expect with M&S is that there are many strains of it around. Unless they've changed in recent years, the one offered by Seeds of Change is very small compared to other strains, and is round like a bowling ball. The one from SSE is most like the one my dad grew. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange sells several strains that are different from the original, including Amish Moon & Stars and Long Milky Way Moon and Stars which is very oblong in shape and has tons of stars and no moons, or very few moons. I believe Long Milky Way was bred by Sandhill Preservation Center's Glenn Drowns. There's also a Cherokee Moon and Stars but I don't think it is markely different from the original M&S except its flesh is pink or pinky-red. In addition to the aforementioned strains, there are some other strains available to members via the SSE yearbook, and that used to include M&S Moons of Jupiter and M&S Early. I didn't take the time to drag out the old yearbooks and look for descriptions of those two. However, I did pull out Amy Goldman's melon book to check and see what she lists for brix (measure of sweetness) for M&S and she shows a brix of 10. Here's the brix numbers for a few of the other melons she lists for comparison's sake: Carolina Cross 9, Sugar Baby 9, Fairfax 11, Blacktail Mountain 10.5, Chris Cross 8, Tom Watson 12, Orange-fleshed Honeydew (which I find very sweet indeed) 13, Old-Time Tennessee 12.5, and Santa Claus (aka Christmas) 9. Moon and Stars is a wonderful melon when picked fully ripe and I think you have either an odd strain or crossed seeds or something. Dawn

I've delayed answering because I didn't want to disappoint everyone, but I wasn't able to go due to illness. Woke up that morning with a migraine-type headache and spent most of the day in bed :( But please don't think your advice was all for naught, because I have an even more important event in a couple of weeks with the Historical Society of the U.S. Supreme Court in D.C. I'm going to wear the Nordstrom jacket dress above, but I need to buy jewelry - I'm thinking pearls? Thank you all for your help!

Liz, Start by getting rid of EVERYTHING that doesn't fit, without any exceptions that it might fit "some day". Make it your goal to know that you can pull out any item of clothing and not have to put it back because it's the wrong size. I am familiar with that "finding a good home" idea and I kept things way longer than I should have because of it. Send your clothes to the thrift store and just picture in your mind someone finding your outfit and exclaiming, "This is PERFECT!". About 2 years ago I discovered the joy of thrift store shopping. LOL It takes time to go through the racks, but I like the thrill of the hunt. Never again will I pay $100 for a wool blazer (bought a like-new one yesterday for $1.60) or $50 for a pair of my favorite jeans (bought 2 pairs yesterday for $2.40 each that looked brand new) etc. I ended up with a new blazer, 2 pairs of jeans, one wool sweater with tags from the Gap, 3 long sleeved tops nice enough to wear to work, a half-dozen scented Yankee votive candles, a brand new big heavy weight fleece blanket to take to my sons football games (for $1.40!), 7 paperback books, and a pair of mens snow pants, all for about $23. Now I find it MUCH easier to get rid of clothes that aren't "me" because now I know that someone out there will find them and be happy. All the clothes in my closet are the right size except one turtleneck I pulled out yesterday that is a size too big. It went directly in a bag to be given away later. Bud--funny story: We work in a conservative midwestern office where we often get those "trendy" dressing, young, transfers from California coming in. They call it "trendy" but we call it "inappropriate". LOL Julie

Y'all're so civilized. My ex's brother & sister-in-law were not civilized. Ron had left his wife (the devoted mother of his children) for a woman from work. who got pregnant faster than Princess Di. The first wife hadn't worked outside the home since her marriage at age 17, Ron being one of those guys who said, "No wife of mine is going to work". & they'd been married for about 12 years. So she had to start from scratch taking secretarial courses to qualify herself for a job. The last time I saw Ron was at his mother's Christmas party, just about 2 months after he moved out, so his wife or ex-wife had no income of her own; she was completely dependent on him for everything. The new wife, all of about 20 minutes pregnant, kept rubbing her tummy & moaning & rubbing her back. (Can you tell how well I liked her?) The kids were subdued, to say the least. When they came in to tell everyone goodnight, I was shocked at their nightclothes. They looked like street urchins. The girl's nightgown was about 10" too short, & it was so worn-out you could almost see through it, & the little boy's "pajamas" were long underwear, stained & ugly. Their mother would *never* have sent them out looking like that. I must have looked shocked, because their new stepmother said, "We can't keep them in good clothes. *She* sends them to us with nothing, & whatever we buy them never comes back to our house (duh, they'd been married less than 2 months, & they'd moved to Oklahoma!), & *we* (!) pay *her* enough money to buy clothes." That was probably 25 years ago, those kids undoubtedly have half-grown children of their own by now... but it was so tacky & so vicious that I still remember it. I'm proud of y'all for being gracious & reasonable & all those other good adjectives. Well done.