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What's funny is that she and her two closest friends actually have differing interests surrounding the same things. Emilee is into the sequential art for the manga, Erin wants to get into 3D animation and Clare is into Digital Video Editing. They could all three work on different parts of one project!

Clare is interested in the University of Advancing Technology precisely because they offer a BA in Digital Video Editing. That major also requires courses in entreprenuerial skills; all of the majors at the school do. They want their graduates to be able to apply those skills for someone else OR for themselves in their own companies. I'm thinking of taking Clare and Joseph out there (Phoenix) during Joseph's April vacation to check it out. Clare wouldn't be going there for a couple of years, anyway, so we don't have to see it before she applies to colleges in December. Actually, the only college in which she's interested right now is Ave Maria Univ. in Naples FL. We're going down there for a visit in Nov., and she's going to ask if it's possible to defer enrollment until the second semester of her freshman year so she can go to Japan for the first semester.

Latest support group news...

You know I invited those friends of my son over yesterday? And their moms came? Well, we visited for four hours while the kids played!!

Come to find out, one of the ladies joined both support groups. She said she didn't know what to do, and her husband had said he didn't think she should join the new group, but she did anyway.

Ok, so she said she went to their meeting, which was the same night as when we voted to stay on every second Tuesday. That meeting was held after the new support group had an "informational meeting" for everyone who had questions about what was done. Many ladies didn't like what they heard at that info meeting and left, came to our meeting and joined BA CHEF. However, my friend didn't. She opted to stay and attend the new support group meeting.

So she told me what their meeting was like. She said, first, before their meeting started, at the informational meeting...people were asking the leadership (Celeste and the leader's husbands) some pretty hard questions. But they were obvious in that they wouldn't answer them...the leader would stand up and say "It's getting heated...let's move on to another question." People were pretty disgusted and many of them left in time to make it to our meeting.

Then, after the info meeting ended and their regular support group meeting started, they played a Powerpoint presentation that showed their "support group" and how active and close it was...showed members interacting and having fun...except about half the members they showed had taken issue with what the group had done and came to BA CHEF!

See, even though the support group was hugh, most people weren't that active...there was a core group of people who take it very seriously and they're the ones that are most active...and guess what...they were the ones that stayed with BA CHEF!

Anyway, my friend said that people were sitting there looking at the presentation and it was completely silent. Afterward, more people got up and left. Including my friend. She said it just suddenly hit her that shouldn't be a part of their support group and she left.

I listened to all of this and I said "Do you think very many people will be at our meeting in September?" She said "I think you're going to be swamped." Then she mentioned "As more and more ladies see people like [name redacted] choosing to leave, more and more are going to re-assess what has happened."

Well, I didn't know [name redacted] had left the other support group! This was a shock to me! She was very active...has organized many things over the years I'd known her and I really liked her...one of the few people that I regretted not being able to see again at the meetings. A leader of the new support group, no less!

My friend showed me her email, saying that her husband had decided that their family wouldn't be part of the new support group!

I don't know if she will be at our meeting in September...but oh, I hope so!

So the fall-out seems to be that more and more ladies are seeing that there is another option and that those who felt uncomfortable about the way they were treated are leaving the other group and coming "home" to BA CHEF.

This makes me feel so good, because when I declared to the world that I would not be joining the new support group, I didn't know another soul other than myself that had made that decision. Although there was private talk of re-organizing, I was the first person to publicly say "I'm signing up with BA CHEF."

Like the little stone that started the avalanche. :-) My husband is proud of me...I'm proud of me!