When life goes nuts!

So I've been absent from my blog for a little while (almost a month!!) And a fair bit has happened in the last few weeks. (Imminent posts on a few bits and pieces we've been up to, but for now I'm going to write about why I've been so quiet!)

At the beginning of August I started my job at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory on Robson Street, and I got stuck in straight away. I very, very much enjoy my job, I found the first few days to be a little overwhelming (I've not worked in this environment before, and was mildly thrown in at the deep end, as I started during the busy summer tourist season) but I've settled in well, get on with everyone and now thoroughly enjoy it. My job entails selling chocolate, fudge, caramel apples and ice cream, being nice and friendly, and answering the same questions every day. 'How do you girls stay so thin?' 'Are you from Australia?' and 'Do you ever get used to the smell?' being the most frequent.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Shop! Yaaaaay!

And then...

Around 3 weeks ago I ate a piece of our Rocky Pop popcorn, and felt rough as hell afterwards. I didn't think much of it at first, then a few days later Ian was eating walnuts, and within minutes of him opening the bag I felt rough again. And then later, I ate something with a Pecan it and boom, my throat swelled up and I had to go and sit down and I became quite wheezy for awhile. Turns out I have tree nut allergies.

I'm not entirely sure which tree nuts, it may be a few or all of them, but so far I've reacted to walnuts and pecans. Drowsy allergy medication is amazing by the way, on one occasion I took some and felt amazingly spaced out and giggly for an hour, and then spectacularly crashed and slept for 4 hours in the middle of the day. They really knock you out!

So for a good 10 days I felt really bad, and it seemed to worsen when I was at work. I had taken to doping myself up on non-drowsy antihistamines before my shifts. But for 2 weeks I felt awful and I was convinced being at work and breathing in the nut dust (our place is pretty nut orientated) was making me ill. So I handed my notice in.

Around 4 days before I was due to finish at work I realised that actually something was not quite right. I felt bad, but not allergy bad, more just throaty bad. It turns out I had/still slightly have but am fighting off, a post nasal drip (not very pleasant so I won't go into details - but if you're interested - it's this!) And it turns out some forms of antihistamine can make it worse, so I immediately stopped taking mine. 2 days later I felt blooming wonderful. I skipped into work and asked if actually please could I keep my job after all, and they told me yes absolutely. So now I am alive and well and keeping my lovely, awesome, wonderful job. I'm just not eating nuts.

On Wednesday we got our seasonal Halloween and Thanksgiving products. (Canadian Thanksgiving is on October 16th, so not long!) We have chocolate skulls, ghosts, mummy lollies, caramel apples shaped like pumpkins and turkeys and woooooooooo, I'm so happy and excited I get to stay.

I've been asked if I'm happy to be trained in closing the shop, so I will have to learn to balance the tills and take on a bit more responsibility, which I think is a great sign. I'm really, really happy (as you may have guessed!) and feel lucky to have a job I love! So now I'm throwing myself into working hard and also persevering in updating this 'ere blog! New posts in the line include writing about our visit to the Pokemon World Tournament and our recent trip into Mt Pleasant where we checked out a vegetarian restaurant!