Blogging my chocolate work

I started another blog - Cocoaluscious - where I can prattle on about my chocolate work. Working in chocolate is something I've loved since 1981, when I began working at The Chocolate Gallery in Santa Barbara. There I learned the craft of working with semisweet, milk, and white chocolates, and the science of cocoa butter and temperature and agitation. I worked there for more than four years and then left to get a college degree in journalism, which I parlayed into university communications, and after a few short hops the marketing communications job I've had for the last five years and which is about to disappear as I've known it. I've loved my job, and now I need to consider my options: Accept what I'm offered, if I'm offered anything; look for something else; or go out on my own again, but this time as a chocolatier (everybody and their cousin's monkey is freelancing in editorial these days, so I won't go back to that). It's likely I won't be able to do that last thing, the chocolate thing, though it's the thing I want to do the most. For one, it would cut my family income by a bit more than a third. For two, it'd destroy my ability to save for retirement (I've been working hard to catch up, as the last economic downturn coupled with my now-late dog's cancer treatment, drained all my savings). For three, I'm extremely debt-averse. Still, I can't stay away from chocolate work. So, I'll keep learning and maybe I'll keep dreaming, and for sure I'll keep writing about it.