The most difficult part of my job?

Not eating all the chocolate!

I need to begin this post with a huge apology - I have been absent lately from the internet world and the "I don't have internet in my apartment" excuse no longer applies. But - I've been having the time of my life lately and maybe that counts?

If you can all forgive me, I'll get you caught up with the promise to schedule to blogging time once or twice a week so you don't get stuck reading looooong entries like this one is about to become.

Here we go!

My job is amazing. Fran's Chocolates is a great company, and I'm proud to be a part of it. It's the kind of job where I can walk in having a terrible day or in a mood - and actually leave feeling happier than when I first arrived. The team is great, even the customers are wonderful (even if they don't start off good: hand anybody a whole free truffle or caramel when they walk in the door, and they're bound to warm up to you real fast), and my own consumption of incredible amounts of chocolate helps.

One of the things I really enjoy about the job is all the chocolate education I've been a part of. Fran stresses how important it is that we not only know her chocolates through and through, but we are also expected to develop our chocolate palates. Since I've tried every chocolate Fran offers (great success!), I'm now expected to participate in weekly chocolate tastings in which we sit down and taste 2 fine chocolates from anywhere in the world (example: last week we had a single origin Ecuadorian bar created in San Francisco, and a single origin Venezuelan bar made in Chicago). During these tastings, we sit down and silently analyze the look, texture, smell, and the flavor at the beginning, middle, end and aftertaste of the chocolate. We take notes in our journals, then discuss (and if needed - eat more chocolate!). We can then use this knowledge to know what is happening in the world of chocolate, understand what we're tasting and most importantly, be able to apply that knowledge to our job. I'm still having trouble finding the correct language to describe flavor experiences, but I have no complaints with practicing my chocolate tasting skills and palate!

I met Fran last week (I was so nervous but she's really wonderful), and her daughter Andrina (who has the most contagious laugh I think I've ever encountered). Hopefully I'll meet Dylan, her son (who is the "head of chocolate/lead chocolatier" - what a title!) soon. I hear he's a great climber and outdoor enthusiast  Tomorrow, I'll have someone take a picture of me in my chocolatier uniform for you all. I feel so fancy in it.

Since I've increased my caloric intake via chocolate, I've also found my favorite ways to burn it off: running and hikes! Lately, I've been working very hard to perfect my barefoot running form and even took a private lesson with Mac (who grew up in Ithaca!) at the Born to Run store (a Seattle based barefoot running company). We had a great lesson, and I was pretty much hired on the spot to work there. I should be hearing from them soon about that. Every time I run, I try to explore somewhere new, which has been great way to tour Seattle - and I've seen some pretty cool stuff, including this AWESOME jeep.

As for hiking - I've been so fortunate to fall into an amazing group of friends here. They all work in information tech (mostly at Boeing or Microsoft and other assorted small companies), so they take their weekends to do fun outdoor things away from the desk and computer. They each have their own favorite hiking spot just outside of the city and I've been tagging along with them, falling more and more in love with western Washington, and the people I'm sharing it with.

Every once in awhile, we want to mix it up, so a few weeks ago, I found myself at the zoo (my friend Jared's favorite place). I really liked this zoo because all of the animals they have were injured or improperly cared for elsewhere and are healed up (or healing) but are otherwise unable to be released into the wild. It has a very different feel from a typical zoo with animals born in captivity. We went on the bus tour through the open lands the zoo features, and saw tons of animals in a more natural, heard setting.

The white bums all facing the camera are hilarious

Yesterday, we went about 40 minutes out of Seattle to go to one of the biggest corn mazes I've ever seen where the group split into teams of two and competed to find all of the mailboxes with distinct hole punches that correspond to different items on your map. My poor sense of direction was no help, so my team lost - HARD (sorry Jared!). The farm also had a pumpkin slingshot where you send mini pumpkins flying about 100 yards and try to hit the target (but really, its just fun to watch them explode).  Unfortunately, I'm not quite big enough to pull the shot back far enough, but lucky for me, I have wonderful friends who then grabbed me and pulled me back so I could play too! Jared was the lucky one who hit the target and won a GIANT pumpkin. Since he didn't want it, he donated it to Ben and Ben's lady, Naomi. This morning, we lugged it into Ben's apartment with the handtruck my parents made me pack (the one that I was so sure I would never use... I hate to admit it, but you were right Mom and Dad, it came in handy). Tonight, I'll be toasting pumpkin seeds from my normal sized pumpkin after I carve it.

Other exciting (and not so exciting) blurbs:

-I bought my first road bike (after weeks of hunting. It's not easy to find one when you're small and on a budget!)

-I had my first root canal!
(Perhaps putting an exclamation point after that statement makes it sound more fun than it actually was...)

-It rained for the first time yesterday. Yep. You read that right. It's mid October in Seattle, and yesterday was the first time I've seen rain here. I like to think I brought all the sunshine with me!

Rainy day in Sea-town.

Thats all the updates for now. Like I said, I promise I'll be better about more consistent blogs.

Much love!