So I thought I was done...

then I go dabblin again...this time, in business. Well, sort of...

I've set up a booth at the Farmers Market here in Salt Lake City. Who knew my dabbling would lead me to become an entrepreneur? My love for sewing and cooking has led me to start a business selling guacamole & aprons through my new business called, Noona's Kitchen.

Of course without having started going to Mass again, this would've never happened. What's going to Mass have to do with my new business? Well, I actually took the Lent season somewhat seriously for the first time in my life. I actually fasted, and experienced what it was like to be hungry. It indeed gave me a real insight to what it must be like to not have enough food to eat on a regular basis, not to be able to just eat what I craved whenever I craved it.

So after going to bed hungry for weeks, I truly wanted to do something to help those in need. And of course, the rite of almsgiving being part of Lent, I started to mentor a refugee family here while giving money to help the North Korean refugees who've escaped North Korea but were in hiding in China, desperately seeking to leave the country that is hellbent on sending them back to the regime that will surely kill them or lock them up in labor camps.

Well, after two months, I'm still trying to make a profit so I can send some money to these poor souls. And this running a business thing isn't quite as fun as I imagined it to be. Coming up with the idea, shopping for equipments, researching kitchens and getting a business license was all exciting and new...especially when my business logo was made and my business card printed. But then having to make and package the damn cu-acamole and getting up at five in the morning on a Saturday to peddle my goods all morning is ruining my beauty sleep & making my hands look old!

Never having had to use my hands for much other than playing the piano and guitar here and there, they ache for days after the Market closes. Don't quite understand why...could it be the constant opening and closing of the guacamole tub to sample the damn cuacs? Could it be having to mash up 90 avocados? Or could it be loading and unloading the 160 lbs of sand bags, the canopy, the table, the coolers, and the cash box?!

And the worst of it is, I've spent about five grand and made about fourteen hundred. Well, having gone off to Europe for a month and leaving the business to others didn't help, as I have been selling out the last three weeks I've been back...but I'm afraid this dabbling is going to put me in the poor house along with the refugees and cripple my beautiful hands.

I mean the pilgrimage across Spain on my walk to Santiago ruined my feet for good, leaving me with hobbit feet Is this almsgiving going to ruin my hands as well? Damn...why did I not stick with my plan not to dabble anymore?!

Well, at least I'm writing again...(and trying something totally new, again!)

Surely, It Can't Be True! The End?

I've had a sudden urge to write. I've been so consumed with life that I'd forgotten how much joy writing brings to my heart. I've neglected this blog, and instead, have dabbled at more frivolous hobbies. If you've been my reader since the start of this endeavor, you know why this blog is called the dabbler.

I had planned on writing way back in the summer when I spent two months in California...especially after I was informed by a friend whom I saw in San Francisco that he couldn't bare finish reading my last post because it was so f*'n depressing. I was confused as I never write about depressing subjects on this particular blog. I had also forgotten what I had written about. He said I had lamented about my dating situation back in Utah. I was even more perplexed since I never write about my personal life on the dabbler.

Well, suffice to say, I finally realized what he was talking about and laughed out loud. However, it did make me worry... I wondered how many others had not finished reading the entire post, and had been feeling sorry for me for all these months. The worst was that that had been the only post on this thing forever! I decided I'd better add another post just in case others also stop mid paragraph disgusted with my boy problems. But of course, I got distracted with my never ending hobbies and my life.

So...

Until disaster hit my basement again this winter, I spent this last autumn being a Mormon. I actually didn't know I was until my friend Chris laughed at me one night when I told him why I was too busy to hang out. I told him about my cake decorating class, my ceramics class, my Latin class, and my French class, and he told me I had essentially become a Mormon chick.

Well, he was right. The French class had future missionaries all trying to learn the language to convert the coffee drinking, cigarette addicted sex maniacs of La France; the cake decorating class had the future housewives who were gearing up to decorate cakes each week for the rest of their lives for their 10 children and the 100 grandkids; and the ceramics class had a whole bunch of overweight Farmington types who were there making Christmas presents for cheap.

Unfortunately, the Latin class was canceled due to the lack of pretentious douchebags you'd find in the East Coast cities where the need to acquire the educated language of theology, other sciences, and the highest English literature and art is great. In SLC, Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse are the highly sought after literature of the day. And theology? Don't think God spoke to Brigham Young in Latin. I think the founder of Mormon church was illiterate on top of being a polygamist. Didn't he have some other guy write down what God revealed to him to create the Book of Mormon (before it was lost)? Yes, yes, you're right. What do I know? I'm only a wannabe Mormon. Wait, I don't think that guy was Brigham Young...BYU is named after Brigham Young, but I think the founder was named George Hamilton, or wait, just remembered, it's Joseph Smith. Sorry...

Anyway, not enough Catholics in town to take the Latin class with me, but I did keep myself busy with all those other Mormon classes, and believe it or not, for the first time in my life I encountered something I was not good at. I cannot for the life of me decorate cakes! It was so frustrating! All those Mormon girls making beautiful cakes like they'd been doing it all their lives. It made me so mad! And the ceramics class, I barely made 3 things, and those Farmington peeps were cranking out about a dozen a night, getting ready for the x-mas gifts for their thousand relatives. And Français? It's like God was working through them so they could spread the gospel and save the French.

And then disaster struck my abode, as I mentioned earlier. Just as my addition of the midget-room was coming to an end, and I was bursting at the seams at the prospect of having a little playroom for the little child in me, my basement flooded for the umpteenth time. Of course, that basically put a halt to my Mormon life. But it really was a blessing in disguise. No one close to me would've been happy to hear that I'd succumbed to the Mormon faith...especially my Catholic parents who hold my inheritance over my head.

But that my friends is old story now. All in the past.

My dabbling days are over, I'm afraid... but so is the chaos of my Sugarhouse shelter, thank god. After trying my hands at almost everything I've ever wanted to do in life, I've finally come to understand what I really enjoy doing, and don't feel the need to dabble any longer. I feel blessed that I've had the opportunity to play for so many years, and with that I end this particular blog. I know, this may be a letdown for many of you, but as that cliche goes, all good things must come to an end.

Thanks for reading & checking back even though I've not written for ages.

With much love, I say farewell.

~Rachel

Don't worry. It's not completely over. I hope to continue writing on my other blog, because writing really does makes my heart smile.