White Female from Suburban Texas.

WARNING: This post was a homework assignment!

This is my planner. This is also my life. I have used a planner since high school, and I’m starting to be convinced that it supplies my oxygen. I stress a lot when I lose it or forget it at home. It is always with me. Always.

I am an organized person. I will forget things if I do not write them down, and I think I got it from my dad. He is a list-maker, and I have become one in my adolescent and young adult years. I like to know what needs to be done and when. Otherwise, I will plan too many things at once because I love to say yes! I actually write in my planner with pencil more often than not, which I imagine is the result of changing plans. While I am organized, I can still be flexible and change my schedule and my plans. I have learned this acceptance of chaos through my leadership experiences and my old perfectionist habits. Things do not work out exactly as planned, ever. But a girl can still dream!

These mums have only recently become a part of my personal culture. I have suddenly ‘grown’ a passion for GROWING! While I have already failed twice (yes, the mums died), and I live on the second floor of a concrete apartment complex, I have the biggest desire for a big, luscious, colorful garden. I have been researching the types of flowers that can grow at different times of the year and studying potting tricks.

I like to think of gardening as part of my future culture because of my new obsession, but it is also a huge part of my past. My great-grandpa, Howard Coombs Stutz, still currently resides here in Provo, UT. He was a botany teacher at Brigham Young University decades ago, and has always had a green thumb. While his specialty was shrubs, he grew the most magnificent trees and flowers and full orchards on his farm. Many of my childhood summers were spent picking cherries and pulling flowers out of his garden and running barefoot through the soft grass. I think these experiences and memories have helped me realize the beauty of the earth and that I can help something to grow, something to bloom, something to live.

Oh, how I love my Kitchen-Aide. Yes, it is 8-years-old but new out of the box. Yes, it is the same color as my counter. Yes, I get to register for a newer, more beautiful one when I get married. But for now, I couldn’t be more pleased.

As a high schooler, I would make the most dramatic moaning noise when my mom would ask me to mix of a box of brownie mix and stick it in the oven. Believe me, my whole family could reenact the sound if you asked them to. Now? You will find me in my little kitchen using my 30-year-old oven to make layered cake from scratch, or 6 dozen cupcakes for a party, or green and red Martha Stewart sugar cookies at Christmas time. Yes, marthastewart.com is what I see when I open Safari on my computer. There are times when I will bake 3 or 4 times a week. I have an urge to create delicious things and watch other people enjoy them. The measuring, the mixing, the tasting, the perfect timing; it is all fulfilling. I want to be the hostess. It is a strange adrenaline-rush. It is empowering. It is exciting. It is me.