Adios amigos, I’m heading to blogspot.com permanently. It’s definitely winning me over with its features and organization and the layout of the reader: instead of being bombarded by half-videos or pictures or nonsense on tumblr. Anyway, see you there!

http://juliannulrickson.blogpsot.com

I will really miss the layout of my tumblr. page though..boo.

Question: When you try to click that does it take you to some weird Bible sites website?

If so, sorry. It shouldn’t.

I would do this. I decided tumblr was a bit too pretentious for what I wanted my travel blog to be. I love tumblr’s simplicity and beauty of the layouts, but I’m going to use my old Blogger address for my travel blog. I like comments and how much freedom I get in deciding the layout (though it can be too much—I’ve wasted much time on it today). I am deciding this at 11:30 pm and I’m leaving home tomorrow at 8:30 am. Typical.

jculrickson.blogspot.com

It’s exporting to Facebook too, so see ya there.

8:00 AM—I saved this as a draft last night in order to think it over. Thinking done. Bye for now, tumblr! <3

see my travel blog —> jcu-europe.tumblr.com

hasta agosto, amigos.

Oh my word. What a day. Whilst everyone in Hillsdale rejoices at the threat of a snowstorm, I am stuck indefinitely in the Upper Peninsula.

This wouldn’t be so bad if I loved snow or if I enjoyed talking on the phone to rather unpleasant strangers about something I don’t know much at all. As it is, I believe today I set a record for strongest detestation of snow and of having to speak with airline people (maybe it’s just a personal record, or maybe it’s the current record). But this is all just a huge character building experience…or something. Calvin’s dad would say that right now, so I’ll just tell myself the same thing. Oh, life.

Speaking of Calvin’s dad, he just walked through my front door. Well it’s really my dad, but the similarity is uncanny: the foggy glasses, the somewhat disgruntled yet triumphant expression, the simple hat and the dripping of snow at the front door—he came to life out of the comic book it seems.

Well, now I must steam some asparagus. And continue calling people, begging them to get me to Spain somehow and soon.

this is it.

My next post will be on jcu-europe.tumblr.com. I’m letting this blog rest until August 2 or so, once I’m finally back in the US.

Disclaimer: I realized I will probs still update this using my cell phone before I leave for realz. It will be the closest thing to Twitter that I will ever experience—simple status updates merely to alleviate my own boredom and perhaps provide amusement.

Good heavens! It’s 10:28 PM. I couldn’t go to sleep right now if I wanted to because a) my bed is strewn with my belongings which b) unfortunately, are not yet packed.

But I will not worry! I will just shutdown my computer for the night and hope to later be able to zip up my suitcase for good as well.

Good-bye for now, to this dear, particular blog!

Still seeking the city, no matter the city or country or continent in which I find myself—buscando la ciudad.

(Oh, please follow my other blog! :) I’m excited to share my experiences and adventures and the crazy things I’ll see and the wondrous things God will do! I plan to travel quite a bit and see more than just Sevilla. I hope to suggest ideas and direct future travelers to good destinations as well. Adios amigos!)

I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.

Philippians 4:11-12

Now, that’s Paul & not me. You’d have to conjugate that “learned” to the gerund for me. (Why the linguistic nonsense? I may just be working with Wycliffe [in España, Deutschland or the UK] in some capacity this summer! More to come on that.)

But thanks, Paul, for revealing that secret you mention so quickly:

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

I have such wonderful friends!

I’m tumbling out of boredom right now. And I’m sending this post from my phone—what? Yes. This ludite is changing her ways..a tiny bit

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,
 a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,
 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance,
 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
 a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,
 a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,
 a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3

colorfulkaleidoscope:

“What we call ‘being in love’ is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us. It helps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty, and it subordinates (especially at first) our merely animal sexuality; in that sense, love is the great conqueror of lust. No one in his senses would deny that being in love is far better than either common sensuality or cold self-centredness. But, as I said before, ‘the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs’. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,’ then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense-love as distinct from ‘being in love’-is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.”

My intended route, subject to change (and become even awesome-er.)

T-10 days

fabulousromancandle:

Among the huge Atlantic-waves of bereavement, poverty, temptation, and reproach, we learn the power of Jehovah, because we feel the littleness of man. Thank God, then, if you have been led by a rough road: it is this which has given you your experience of God’s greatness and lovingkindness. Your troubles have enriched you with a wealth of knowledge to be gained by no other means: your trials have been the cleft of the rock in which Jehovah has set you, as he did his servant Moses, that you might behold his glory as it passed by. Praise God that you have not been left to the darkness and ignorance which continued prosperity might have involved, but that in the great fight of affliction, you have been capacitated for the outshinings of his glory in his wonderful dealings with you.

—Spurgeon

This passage instantly reminded me of Christmas day. From the literal waves to the dealing with tribulations, it fits perfectly: to escape some of the misery that night, I had walked for an hour and a half, stopping by the snow-covered beach to hear Lake Superior’s frigid waves crash on the shore. The cold was as shocking as the reminder of God’s power that shouted to me in the icy pounding. I laughed at the ridiculousness of it all—alone in the pitch black, Christmas night, eyes streaming and cheeks stinging from the wind—and remembered the whole life-vs.-eternity idea and why we’re here in the first place. That sent me home freezing and joyful.

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” —C.S. Lewis

…and a deaf Juliann. I’m thankful my hearing is on the mend! Of course, it still requires frequent check-ups with the Great Physician… Okay—pun over (and out).