The angel food cake was a hit with everyone, and it lifted the way it was supposed to so imagine angel food cake taste without the rubbery texture store-bought cakes have. In short, it was amazing. Even my dad had 3-4 pieces over 2 days since he couldn't believe this is what it was supposed to taste like any other time he'd had it :D. I also had (naturally) 12 egg yolks to worth with, so I made 3 batches of lemon-lime curd to go with the cake and there was enough my mom and I could both freeze some for later use. My sister was happy as well, so everything went off without a hitch since it was one of the few weekends we've had no snow.

Speaking of snow, it's busy blizzarding right now and we have probably a foot plus on the ground so far. I lost power some time last night, but it's back and I'm crossing my fingers that it stays that way. I'm pretty sure we're going to break all kinds of records for snowfall since our winters have been so weak lately and this one is making up for all of the other years.

I made sure to get everything done that required going outside yesterday by 8 pm, so I'm good although I may try to dig my car out tomorrow so I can head to the beach and get some pictures. I want to make the most of my time here since if I do manage to buy a place in the next year it will be at least 15 minutes to the beach, not 5 like now. I'm pretty sure I'm going for either Brick or Toms River since they have semi-reasonable condos/townhouses, I'll still have access to NYC for my job, and most importantly, be close to my parents since they're turning 82 and I know time is limited for them.

So I'll keep stalking Zillow, and hope I find a reasonable place that has a garage. I don't think that's too much to ask. 

I have a very strong people pleasing streak which has impacted me to my detriment more times than I can count. Especially when it comes to family, despite some VERY deep-seated and dysfunctional relationships and interactions, I find myself still putting forth the extra effort. Often with my parents it is worth it since we've worked on our relationship a lot in the past 5 years, with some marked success. With my aunt it's always treading a fine line since she was always very temperamental and never really moved past seeing us as children since her world seems to have stopped about 40 years ago, sadly. I haven't seen much growth even though I tried, and now that she has dementia it's unlikely to improve so I've accepted it as is.

With my sister it's always been the most complicated, and also contributed to my trust issues with my parents. For now though, she probably won't be in the picture nearly as much since she's out in Evanston, so I can literally get some distance. I've also managed to disentangle the parent/sister issues over the past few years so it doesn't impact as much.

What remains is rather telling, however. For my birthday last year she got me a self-help book she had read. No really, that was the whole gift. For my family, I spend months pre-Christmas and birthdays getting cards, finding gifts they will like and use, and offering to bake something for them (a hobby I picked up over Covid). So this year I got her rechargeable hand warmers since Chicago can get super cold, a nice-smelling hand sanitizer spray with refill since she's germophobic, And I offered to bake since she'll be in this weekend.

She's kind of doing the "I don't want to age, ever" thing that tripped up my aunt, so she's doing all sorts of teeth whitening and cosmetic changes short of fillers/surgery since she's terrified of the medical profession, so it's another "white diet" time for her. Ok. I texted to ask if she wanted anything and she replied with angel food cake.

 It's a strange coincidence. Right before I got my job in 2022 and lost the time to devote to trying new bakes on the regular, I had bought a tube pan for that exact experiment, so this works out, oddly enough. It might turn out a disaster, but it's worth a try at least. I have that, a recipe for a stabilized whipped cream frosting, and can use the extra yolks to make a lemon-lime curd to go with the cake which should be delicious. So today before getting online for my early call at work I went food shopping, picked up the specialty ingredients, and I guess we'll see how it goes!

I guess for once my people pleasing will work out for me as well. 

This winter has been unreal. I got used to cold weather when I went to undergrad in Ithaca, NY since we had to walk to class no matter what the weather (no really, once they closed the county but we still had lecture, and this was pre-internet teaching so your butt had to be in that wood seat). NYC was no picnic either between the metal subway steps icing up and the wind blowing through the building canyons, but same deal. In order to get where you had to be, you got up, hiked to the subway, hiked out of the subway and into work.

Still, I don't remember more than a handful of days where the high remained below 15 and the wind chill was in negative territory. So today I had the luxury of staying in after seeing the temperature was 1 degree when I got up this morning, and cleaned my floors since I've been tracking in salt from the previous snowfalls. Especially after the last snow/ice event there are just mounds of snow and slabs of ice hanging out in all of the parking lots or on street corners since almost nothing has melted in two weeks.

I enjoy having four seasons. But considering this past summer was brutally hot in July, and now we're getting brutal cold in Dec/Jan/Feb, the temperature swings of over 100 degrees are a bit much. I have the appropriate clothes, since you can always put layers on whereas there's only so many you can take off in the summer, and they are getting a proper workout this year.

And finally of course, my greatest luxury is the ability to work from home every day. I know and appreciate it every damn day, and never lose sight of that, even when I feel like I'm being overworked. Compared to my last job, which defined overworked and then being taken advantage of in every possible way they could think of from benefits strangulation to what would now be 100% RTO and minimal pay, it certainly gave me a standard to measure against. And I'm BY FAR on the positive side of that equation in my new(ish) job.

It's also revealing that I consider a job I've been in for almost four years new(ish). Twenty five years ago, like most people first starting out, one year in a job was the exception not the rule as I was searching for what fit me within my field. And then I jumped from a year and a half to thirteen and a half years in that terrible job, where every year was worse, and the only recompense was living in NYC. 

While I do miss being in a social situation in offices, I wouldn't trade it at my age, and so I'm happy where I am. I'm just hoping these four years are the start of a long twenty year career at SIB. And also that the weather starts going above freezing sometime soon to melt some of this leftover snow lol.

Growing up we never talked about money as a household. My parents both were high school teachers so while they weren't making a ton we were comfortable, if on the lower end of our town's income, and they both had pensions so retirement was something that would just happen for them. Today when I mention I grew up in a house with one telephone (land line), one TV, no air conditioning except 1 window unit for my parents' bedroom, and one bathroom, people look at me like I came from Mars lol!

Along with the lack of general money knowledge, I knew to get a job as early as possible, so I started working part-time in the local library at 14, and straight on except for one summer in undergrad until 2020. The Covid break was my longest unemployment, at a little over 2 years, and over time in various jobs I ended up with a 403(b), 401(k), employee stock purchase program stock, small pension, small traditional IRA, and there was a ROTH IRA I had from 18 forward which I'd funded on and off. I looked at this and went "there's got to be a better way," especially since I now have another, current 401(k) and ESPP for SIB.

I tried to get a response from my current bank where my ROTH is, but after 6 months and 3 in-person visits being told "he'll call you" I finally gave up and found a different firm. They do wealth management with average AUM between 250,000 and 1M so I fit in that category and figured as their target client I would get decent service, plus they have a local branch.

So far I'm very happy with what they have, they understand my fairly conservative risk portfolio given the possible health issues that may occur (I didn't go into detail, just said I may have to retire early because of health reasons), and money is now being transferred over, although the full transfer of assets won't be finalized for a few months still because of the pension which requires more paperwork.

I've added money to the mental list of "things I wish my parents had told me" at least with budgeting, etc, but also realize that their retirement experiences are completely different from what mine are since they had the bulk of their money pre-403(b). I'm happy for them it worked out that way since I hate dealing with money. I've had an anxiety attack every day I've left the financial advisors offices, even if I can force myself to hold it together while I'm there, and I know this traces back to basically feeling like I was left to my own devices on these issues.

Oh well, I'll suffer a few more attacks I'm sure, but it will be worth it to hopefully never have to make major changes other than an occasional rollover or something of the sort pre-retirement. At the very least, my accounts are getting consolidated into 3 main, an annuity, a traditional IRA, and a ROTH IRA. All of my money will be gone from my former employer so if they try to do anything funky with the pension (which I wouldn't put past them), it's safely gone. I've never been much for risk, but this at least gives me some peace of mind.