I feel sick to my stomach hearing about the vicious attacks going on in Paris right now.  It's Friday the 13th and I could not imagine how anyone in their right mind could justify murdering scores of innocents; to rob people of their dreams and tear from others their loved ones is more monstrous than anything in this world. It's a terrifying time we live in, where someone with an insidious agenda only has to get access to a machine gun or a bomb to destroy countless lives.  I mean, these victims will never again see the beautiful colors of sunrise; some didn't know that kiss with their spouse was their last while others' eyes will never even glisten with tears as their father walks them down the aisle.
      This week for me has been school, finishing Gossip Girl, working out an hour a day, and checking the mailbox constantly to see if my mission papers have arrived.  Life is so casual, and yet we never know when it will be clipped short!  Am I just taking everything for granted?  We act as if we have a hundred years; but even if we do, that will go by so fast, and if we don't-- well then are we wasting our time?  The most terrifying thing for me is losing those I hold dear; I honestly think I would shatter if I received news that someone I loved perished, especially in such a horrendous event as today's.
    Today I am going to live the good way, calling home to hear the voice of family, enjoying memorable adventures with my sweet friends here, and graciously enjoying this beautiful world with lungs full of fresh air and an intent to do right.  I want to live in a way that I will not have flashbacks of regret but rather gratitude for every moment.  I want to appreciate those whom I call loved and use my creativity and give my everything to the God who has given me Life.
    Pray for Paris.  

*Since today is the day Marty McFly time-traveled from the 1980's with Doc and Jennifer, click here to see the time in 2008 when we got to sit in the actual time machine.*
    A few weeks ago I was playing truth or dare with a group of kids.  Since I'd rather have to answer the question "how many boys have you kissed" than lick the mud off the bottom of a palm tree, I just kept taking truth.  One round, though, I was a little startled by the question, "What is your biggest regret?"  I seriously had a hard time with that, not because I was too shy, but because I genuinely had a hard time thinking of something.  Almost all of the bad things in my life paved the way for something better!
     Had I a little more time to think, sure, there are probably a few wiser words I would give to younger myself could I travel back in time.  And one thing that I would certainly change is me waiting until my senior year of high school to take a serious art class.  Although I drew probably every day as a child, I could have SERIOUSLY done myself a favor had I learned a few basic techniques early on.  It only means that I have a lot of catching up to do now!
     For my drawing course, we've had to do five sketches every single week as well as several big projects.  I'll admit it's a huge pain, but I've sure learned a lot.  While drawing yesterday, I accidentally fell into a 90's music loop on YouTube and boy did I just feel like an itty bitty kid again or what!  I found songs I hadn't even realized I knew: Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer, It's My Life by No Doubt, Torn by Natalie Imbruglia, Hit Me Baby One More Time by Britney Spears, She's So High by Tal Bachman, and countless others.  It was strange to have flashbacks of sitting in a carseat back when I lived in Boston.

mine is the hand with the hummingbird

mine is the bottom fourth from the right

the center is an imaginative portrayal of my protagonist-- not sure how to use watercolor for realistic renderings, but it's sure fun to play with those colors!

     On a different note {disclaimer: this is not me being depressed, just musing}, I have recently been wondering about what my calling in life is.  Do I even have one?  As the kind of person who seeks purpose in everything, it frightens me to think that there might not be something  special that makes my time important.  Yes, I enjoy writing and art and singing and acting and coming up with orchestral songs in my head and caring for animals and exploring both natural and man-made wonders, I have a good GPA and I have my own developed opinion... But what is my calling?  Are all of these things just fun little characteristics that will ultimately not matter, or will one of these carve the path of my future?  I guess that's why I get so excited when I daydream about being a mom someday-- the idea of being able to raise up a beautiful human being and teach them that they are important just gets me!

{This post is scheduled for the time of my graduation, 7:00 PM on May 21, 2015. I will actually write it afterwards.}
It was so surreal-- the moment I had been imaging my entire life was here. In my teal and black gown and with my sparkly tassle carefully hanging from the right side of my cap, I entered the field with Highland High School's class of 2015. It was the same field where we had screamed with spirit during our football games, where we had watched our mascot parachute through the sky during the homecoming pep assembly.  This time, though I no longer donned a cheer uniform nor did school royalty wave in parade, the people cheered just as loudly as in every precious memory we'd gained these past four years.
  There were good times, and there were bad times.  Freshman and sophomore year the classes were almost unbearably hard, but I spent every Friday and Saturday having the time of my life with friends.  Junior and senior year the classes were a breeze but I learned many more important things-- about myself, about friendship and love, about choosing to be happy even when I felt terribly sad, about the importance of making clean choices and about taking control of my own life path. 
  We took our seats and the speeches began.  We were given many inspiration messages about our potential and it was so exhilarating to be reminded that now, free from the bonds of childhood, the millennial generation can make a difference in the world so long as we choose to do so.
  Then the list of names began.  I couldn't help the bouncing of my feet-- the anxiousness was unbelievable!  This was it!  Not gonna lie though-- as soon as Katherine Elizabeth Lundgreen echoed through the speakers, half of my brain was occupied with the thought don't-trip-don't-trip while I took my my diploma and shook a line of hands and smiled like crazy. The other half?  Ecstatic, shocked, nervous, relieved, nostalgic you name it.
And then?  "Class of 2015, we did it!" and the tassles moved from right to left and caps flew and fireworks exploded.  When childhood friend Katie and I saw each other, we screamed and hugged and then suddenly pulled back, made eye contact and started to cry.  It had hit us.  Volume I of our lives had officially drawn to a close.

      Wow, I am feeling so happy with the present.  Although I wouldn't say I love school right now {I don't really understand many of my classes except for art, which is great because I can just sit there paiting the whole hour all by myself listening to my iPod- an introvert/future design student's paradise} but I survive the other classes by sketching away the time. Maybe that's terrible.  But aside from that, I'm really trying to live in the moment.  I have just 51/2  months before I leave AZ for good {which is CRAZY} so  I've enjoyed making the last little while worth it.
         We have a litter of puppies at my house right now, seven little cuties who are now 21/2 weeks old and love to use their newly-discovered voice boxes in the weirdest ways possible as well as chew on each other.  One of my new favorite memories now is when Dallin & I fell asleep on the couch with one of the pups cuddled up asleep between us.

unedited photo proof of my ability to do the dishes with an arm and rock a baby retriever to sleep in the other

         My New Years Resolution was to work out an hour every day.  I know it's not that impressive, but for someone who is in no sports / has no gym membership and has to be completely self-motivated, I'd say it's pretty good.  At least it's better than what I used to do {going home and goofing off on the internet with a dessert in hand}.  I was dedicated for a little until I got sick for two weeks and then got slammed by the amazingly fun business of Footloose-- but now that that's over, I've already started to get back into it.  Honestly, once I get into the habit, I love love love working out and can be frequently seen with a huge grin as I go running along the road.  I just know that I feel a million times better when I'm constantly excersizing, which also motivates me to eat healthy so I don't have to "work it off," which makes me feel even better.  The workout changes every day, but I usually do 30-40 minutes of cardio followed by 20-30 minutes of various Pinterest strength-training excersizes.
     Anyway, enough of my rambling.  Drumroll for the unbelievable thing I've been dying to say...
THIS GIRL JUST GOT ACCEPTED INTO BYU HAWAII.
Yes, I said it.  I found out last night while out at a restaurant with a big group of friends and pretty much freaked out.  My mom called to tell me and I almost couldn't believe my ears.  Could this be true?  My whole childhood I thought I'd never actually grow up, but now I'm actually getting ready to go to school in tropic paradise with kids from countries across the globe.  Like my hard work actually paid off, after years of dedicating practically all my time and efforts to make sure I was good enough to go to college.  I'm so excited.   I feel so blessed.
  But back to what I was saying earlier, I'm happy with the present.  I don't wanna go away quite yet because I wanna enjoy all the time I can with these amazing family and friends.

Childhood spun round and round, a joyous ride with sparkling lights and bright colors and innocent music.  Now, although the carisol still spins, it's starting to move slower and slower and I know the final stop is inevitable.    

Rachel, me, Kendall, Paige

  I hadn't been to a graduation since my Aunt April's, when my mom and I flew to California for a few days to see her.  Being probably six at the time, I found it to be quite boring.  But at this year's graduation,  as the caps flew in the air with cheers of elation, none of my best efforts could stop my eyes from welling up with tears.  My dear cousin Kendall, the girl just five months older than me who I've known my whole life, is eighteen now and going to Beret's Honor College at ASU.
  As the family joined in celebration for some late night waffles, my brain couldn't help but reflect back on almost two decades of memories.   As a kid I remember thinking about the future as if it were impossible, that it would never come.  The fourth graders seemed like big kids, and I could not possibly imagine myself being a Teenager, though I figured Teenagers probably drove cars & partied with friends every weekend & went on dates & wore makeup & had dreadful amounts of homework & had people waving alcohol in their faces everywhere they went to try and make them sin.   The post-high school years?  Pssshhht.  Those were just a myth.
  Yet now as Kendall moves into adulthood and I closely follow, the years where today seemed like a fantasy feel like just yesterday.   I remember Rachel & I laying on the white kitchen tile of our Boston home, watching The Little Mermaid on our portable video cassette TV when suddenly the doorbell rang and Kendall & Paige arrived from Arizona, my first memory of them, since we were all just babies when my family moved east.  After that, a vivid influx of countless memories streams in my mind, making all the time that's passed even more shocking.   Where do I even begin?

• Our favorite activity was sleepovers, and over the years we would do stuff from sledding down the stairs in sleeping bags to cardboard princess castles to discussing politics and religion late into the night {even as primary kids} to laughing our heads off over a game of Balderdash-- although no matter how old we were, we never tired of the traditional Lundgreen sourdough waffles nor chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream.  At one of these sleepovers when we were probably around seven, we had a spa/makeover night, using my mom's foot bath massager, lining up in a hair train, and applying makeup on each other.  We convinced my mom to buy spa masks, and then Kendall suggested we put cucumbers on our eyes to make ourselves look young again.  Though I complied, I was not thrilled with the idea of looking younger-- if people already thought I looked five, now I'd look like a baby!  Another time in elementary school Kendall was going through a health nut phase.  We were making frosting, but when I tried to lick the creme cheese wrapper, she freaked out.  "That's filled with cholesterol!  The fat's gonna clog up your arteries!"  Needless to say I dropped the package real fast.  Or how about the time we Googled Greek mythology and freaked out because we accidentally saw a photo of a naked statue of Aphrodite?
• When we first moved back, Kendall & I would hang out separately from Rachel & Paige because of age difference.  But at some point we thought it would be more logical to have us switch because Paige & I shared the middle name Elizabeth while Kendall & Rachel shared the middle name Anne, so we, of course, formed the Anne Club and the Elizabeth Club.  But that was back in the era when we would pretend to give birth to baby dolls, so who knows why are brains thought that way.
• Uncle Dave always told us the story of Tick & Tock, a prankster pair of mice-sized men that followed the Lundgreen family over the rainbow from Denmark.  Tick & Tock, we learned, are pretty much the nicest little guys ever-- they will write birthday wishes on the whiteboard while you sleep if you are kind enough to leave them some cookies and playdough beds in the dollhouse-- but boy they can be troublemakers.  One time they left a trail of jellybeans from
  
  Paige's pillow all the way downstairs to the kitchen and into the waffle batter!   
• Christmases, of course, are filled with tradition.  Almost every Christmas Eve, our two families get together for a ham dinner before we read Luke II.  But as children, we would always reenact the Nativity, get matching jammies, and watch the online Santa tracker like hawks while others stared out the window looking for Rudolph's nose in the distance.  Of course, we were too young back then to realize that Santa usually doesn't get to Arizona till much later when we're asleep!  In the morning, though, breakfast with our cousins were usually filled with tales of how the reindeer accidentally kicked the window and such.
• When I was in fourth grade & Kendall in fifth, we both watched Titanic.  Our parents always called us "old souls," and for some reason the movie rocked both of us.  We were shocked at the horrible luck, pride, and irony that resulted in such a tragedy on April 15, 1912.  I can tell you off the top of my head that out of approximately 2200 passengers, only 700-something made it, while the other 1500 perished in the freezing Atlantic-- yes, Kendall & I were so horrified by this that we spent the next couple years researching every last fact, visiting museums, devouring every book from historical fiction novels to encyclopedias, watching other movies and then again the 1997 version more times than we could count {so many times I could probably hum the entire soundtrack to the exact key}.   Despite being a ten-year-old too young to even understand why my mom always had to skip the scene in the car {"You already had to fast forward the part where Jack sketched Rose naked, what more could they possibly do?!" I asked every time.}, I sobbed uncontrollably every time I watched the ship sink.  See, even now I get really irritated when people make Titanic jokes, because even then at that young age Kendall & I understood the horrors of death.  We didn't mean to be morbid, but rather we were compelled by the thought that life much more fragile than we'd ever realized {if you look at those numbers, that would be akin to taking my entire high school and killing everyone but the senior class}.  I remember one time finishing a novel and being so saddened by the orphaning of this fictional twelve-year-old & his sister that I spent the next few days in complete depression, angered that other kids my age could be goofing off when there were such horrible things happening in the world {it was a foolish notion that humanity is selfish for feeling happiness, but how else was a kid supposed to react?}.  So of course...  the Thanksgiving after we saw the movie, while everyone else was riding bikes, Kendall and I started writing a book.  It was about a group of kids named Hailey, Kalia, Jake, and Peter who accidentally got superpowers, including straight-F-report-card Jake's sudden brainiac abilities that allowed him to invent a time machine {the Lindenberg} that took them back to the R.M.S. Titanic, where they met a pretty third class passenger named Anna and got stuck aboard the doomed ship. We never finished it, and unfortunately, I don't even know what happened to the book!  I did proceed to write two short stories and several poems on my own. 
  
• If you haven't noticed by now, Kendall & I were history nuts, so we were thrilled when {when I was in third grade} Santa Claus gave us four girls American Girl Dolls.  Kendall got Swedish pioneer Kirsten, Rachel and I got American colonists Felicity {Patriot} & Elizabeth {Loyalist}, and Paige got 19th-century Mexican-American Josephina.  We played with these dolls so often that Santa later gifted us with more dolls such as Great Depressionist Kit & Victorian factory-worker Nelly.       
• Let's not forget our adventures at the giant jungle playground Makutu's Island, or rollerskating/launching rockets/rolling down the grand hills at Freestone Park, or escaping to a beautiful Scottsdale hotel for my fifteenth birthday. Of course, no number of years will make the four of us girls & my mom stop laughing every time someone mutters the word "nipple" under their breath, and we will probably spend the rest of our lives hearing references to "a type of fly that moves so fast, no one has ever seen it."  I hope even when we get older we'll enjoy chick flicks like Twilight & When in Rome and still do stuff like spontaneously deciding to see movies that start in ten minutes like In Time. 
    

I know there are way more memories that I've forgotten to write down, but that's the thing-- when you've grown up together, how can one little blog post serve justice to an entire lifetime of memories?  I never believed my mom when she told us that she felt like she was a kid just yesterday, but now I'm starting to understand.   It's funny how Kendall, who vowed not to marry before she was at least 24, now has a steady boyfriend who will get back from his mission when she's 19 {and I too have a {BF}.   But I guess even if childhood is slipping away, life isn't.  In fact, it's just beginning.  So good luck dear cuz.