I’ve not just been avoiding blogging- no really. I’ve been constructive. I’ve been working on my website and trying to figure out some creative non-advertising/advertising to get some business going here in Utah. (Check it out if you live in Utah and need a cake- screaming deals if you know of a bride who needs a cake- plus you can order your next birthday cake in advance and still get the deal). <- Shameless plug... I've also been scouring Craigslist/SL Tribune etc for something I can do to bring in some $$. Something that I can do without leaving my kids/paying for a babysitter. You see we've not rented our house- and paying a mortgage and rent? Well, that really sucks. So while I'd rather be baking for $$ I'm seriously considering babysitting other people's kids- preferably a little tiny baby- cause I love babies and that wouldn't be a big deal. Another toddler? That probably wouldn't be so fabulous. Babysitting also would be consistent. The home baking gig? Not so much.

Other things I've been doing? Well last week was TEC. What is TEC you ask? Well it's The Elitist's Convention. Who are these Elitists? There are 12. 12 people who moved from a public board (BBC) to a private board(SR) to a 'more open' private board(JR) that became a closed private board- to our own 'little' board(The Elitists). Confused much? The details are even foggy to me now. Anyway.

Women gossip. It's part of the 'natural woman' that I think we're supposed to overcome. It's happened on every board I've been on. Whether it was someone venting about their husband, or mother in law or sister or person in their ward it happened. Even when I was a member of both SR and JR people on SR would gossip or vent about people on JR that weren't on SR. *Not that any of this makes any gossiping okay.* The problem was that on this 'little' board it happened a lot more about the people on the other boards that we belonged to because well, because it was easy since we all knew them, and got annoyed by some quirky things about some specific people. I'm sure I do annoying things too- heck- everyone does. But it got a little out of control sometimes and mean spirited to put it mildly. Think Mean Girls.

About a year or so ago it all came crumbling down. Because of a link and a programming error (at least these are the theories) someone not on our board found our board and was able to access it. She felt the need to ‘out’ us and spread the link and password willy nilly through the boards so that secretly people were reading not only current posts but archives.

The search button was our downfall. We didn’t only gossip about other people. In fact it wasn’t even an every day occurrence. But one of the husbands of one of the women on our board built us a board and it had a search function. No board we’d ever been on had a search function before. It was lovely. Need a recipe for Char’s Sweet Smothered Pork Burritos? No problem- just search for it. Need to remember when your baby took their first step? You most likely posted about so just use the search function. There was lots of other things that we discussed. Tons of support for being the mom of small children. It’s something that I really really miss. We grew incredibly close.

Of course if you weren’t a member of the board and wanted to know if we said anything about you then you just did a search for your name and came up with the 5 times we mentioned you and it looked like we talked about you all the time. Of course that wasn’t true- but it appeared that way.

As a result we were all kicked off the big board (which we should have been) and the little board sort of imploded. The other boards started referring to us as ‘The E12′ which was pretty catchy. Of course it initially meant ‘The Elitists 12′ but someone mentioned that in their mind the E stood for evil. We actually found that pretty humorous and the nickname stuck even amongst ourselves.

Fast forward a year or so. We still are a pretty tight group for the most part. We don’t communicate as regularly as we did when we had a board- but you’d better believe a group email goes out when I have a problem I need help with. Or something I need help thinking through. Or when a large event happens in my life. One of the biggest pluses of moving to Utah? I’m within an hour of half of our group. The other half? They come to visit. Like last week. Several of our girls who live out of state or out of country were going to be in Utah. So the rest of us (almost) made it work and we had a reunion. Of course for any reunion (or convention) you need cake. If you’re evil? Then you need a devil cake with hell fire. If you’re really evil? Then you need inside jokes made out of fondant. So if you’re not ‘E12′ you probably won’t get the jokes, and I’m not going to explain them here because well, that’s really not fair (see, I’m learning even if I’m a slow learner).

If in the group there are about a billion children? You need cupcakes to commemorate just who is going to Hell.

We had a great couple of days and girl’s night out’s and overall it was a fabulous week and really something I needed. This picture was taken at a gathering after some people had already left town. But really all we did for three days was eat and visit. My kind of fun.

As far as being evil? I don’t really think we are. I think we’re human. I’ve learned some lessons though. #1- don’t gossip. #2- If you are going to gossip don’t write it down. #3- A lot of people are more forgiving then you’d think. #4- Those that aren’t? Well- you’ll get along fine without them.

So there is probably more information then you wanted to know. Anyone who wants their face/cupcake blurred out let me know. Those of you who thought I was perfect or nice now know better (HA! Like there was anyone like that to begin with.)