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.