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	<title>Strength and Beauty</title>
	<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com</link>
	<description>A colloquy portrait of a woman.</description>
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		<title>New every morning.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I find myself so thankful for morning. The way you are washed clean from the night&#8217;s before weariness and despair. It&#8217;s like your internal computer is reset and all perspective is restored. Everything isn&#8217;t erased or lost necessarily; it&#8217;s just the scales are rebalanced and clarity radiates. I went to bed grasping for any remnants [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/07/29/new-every-morning</link>
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		<title>In the garden tonight.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[And that just about made my day. I have not been in the garden, meaning: on all fours, hands plunged into the earth, wrestling with weeds, tending and nurturing the wee little ones, snipping off that dead thing, moving this, tying this up. It feels that all I have been doing as of late is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/07/26/in-the-garden-tonight</link>
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		<title>A still moment.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My house is flooded with kids, all under the age of 5, this week. I was in the kitchen this morning putsing and I kept going to the back porch to check on Scarlet who was outside. I was just far enough removed that she didn&#8217;t notice me and I simply enjoyed watching her small [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/07/21/a-still-moment</link>
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		<title>In the silence&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8230;I have turned the front porch into a sitting area which is so lovely in the morning. On the other side is a play area with a full kitchen, baby center (for dolls, that is) and dress up clothes to make you giddy if you were a four year old. &#8230;I have cleared out the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/07/14/in-the-silence</link>
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		<title>Love, true love&#8230;according to an ESFJ</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m quirky. I know this. I have &#8220;processes&#8221;, I call them; simple routines in my day that I feel compelled to do, often in a certain order. When I was first married, my processes came up against an INTP and he did everything possible to rearrange, block and put to an end some of my [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/06/14/539</link>
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		<title>The Cadillac Bike Takes Me Places</title>
		<description><![CDATA[* WPG2 Plugin Not Validated * We had a play date at the Waukegan beach today! Second day in a row we have been to the beach. What an amazing and beautiful place; so much blue, every shade of it. I decided to pack up the burly with the two children weighing in at a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/06/10/the-cadillac-bike-takes-me-places</link>
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		<title>The Scents of the Gods</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have been with children all day. Dinner ended, I cleaned up and started that glorious piece of machinery, the dishwasher and went outside to move the garbage to the curb. And then I got lost&#8230;in my garden. I ended up in the herb garden and felt inspired to weed. How often does that happen? [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/06/07/the-scents-of-the-gods</link>
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		<title>Christmas on Memorial Day</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Audrey and I found ourselves singing Christmas songs this evening. Oh, the weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful, And since we&#8217;ve no place to go, Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! This cheerful Christmas burst was instigated when I asked Audrey to go find me a clean table [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/06/05/christmas-on-memorial-day</link>
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		<title>Dippin&#8217; Oreos with Jesus</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Audrey sits at the breakfast nook in our teal colored kitchen. Oreo cookie in hand, pulling apart and plunging into the ice cold milk. &#8220;Audrey, who taught you how to do that?&#8221; In a voice that is matter of fact and a face that is full of all seriousness, &#8220;Jesus taught me.&#8221;]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/06/02/dippin-oreos-with-jesus</link>
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		<title>My seed season is drawing to an end.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have been diligent in tending 5 flats of seeds that have turned into baby plants which have now entered my garden. I am ecstatic! I have been coached by a few beloved gardeners and am learning more and more each season. And finally my garden is beginning to look like a garden. It is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.shanelmartens.com/2010/06/01/my-seed-season-is-drawing-to-an-end</link>
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