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	<title>Personal Joys &#8211; Carol A. Craig</title>
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	<title>Personal Joys &#8211; Carol A. Craig</title>
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		<title>Lions, Lambs, and Axes </title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/lions-lambs-and-axes/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/lions-lambs-and-axes/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2024 05:01:49 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life cycles]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=2043</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[There’s been a cosmic shift at our house.

Trickster March tiptoed in like a lamb with her seductively warm temperatures, nesting birds, and uncharacteristic gluts of sunshine. Yet like a good date gone bad, the she-beast abruptly reared her lioness head with snow, gray skies, and accompanying sour moods. Such is the course of nature in these parts. It’s no wonder that, compared to other locales, March in the North boasts the pinnacle of poor mental health.]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>10</slash:comments>
		
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		<title>The Minivan (Black and) Blues</title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/minivan-blues/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/minivan-blues/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Feb 2024 06:01:34 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life cycles]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=2030</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[“I’d like an exact replacement down to the color,” I crisply inform a salesman at our favorite car dealership. My beautiful red Chrysler Town and Country minivan had been totaled en route to work the preceding day. I was fine - in sharp contrast to the six-point buck who stepped in front of me on a dark country road at the less-than-sociable hour of 5:15 am. ]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		
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		<title>Prisoner Transfer</title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/prisoner-transfer/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/prisoner-transfer/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Mar 2023 22:07:28 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=1891</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[“We want to be in YOUR family!” hotel staff would buoyantly exclaim in response to my kin’s general tomfoolery and raucous laughter. Affectionately dubbed “the prisoner transfer,” we siblings would convene semiannually in random Interstate 57 motels to pass the aging-parent baton allowing both ourselves and parents a change of scenery and posse of caregivers. Our planned weekend overnights to share the load would occur somewhere between our cities and include a rollicking catching up, routine medical updates, and typical slapstick fodder of our collective DNA. ]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
		
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		<title>The Good Plates</title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/the-good-plates/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/the-good-plates/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Feb 2023 06:01:39 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=1870</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[A recent reader essay in Victoria magazine got me thinking. It was a loving tribute to a set of bone china, recently passed to –and eagerly accepted by– a younger generation. My own cupboards reveal that I am the lucky (though some would label me unlucky) recipient of three sets of ancestral dishware, each with its own pattern and ethereal dialogue of its forebears encompassing joy, hardship, and most notably, perseverance. ]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		
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		<title>Circles of Eternity</title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/circles-of-eternity/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/circles-of-eternity/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Feb 2022 06:01:00 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Holidays and Special Events]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=1593</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Gold and silver rings encircle a finger on my right hand. Recently refurbished, these circles of infinity whisper to me from the women who paved the way for my existence. ]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		
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		<title>Giraffe and The Gettysburg Photo</title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/giraffe-and-the-gettysburg-photo/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/giraffe-and-the-gettysburg-photo/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Apr 2021 05:01:28 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=1163</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[The one-eyed giraffe winks at me; not because he wants to, but out of necessity. He lost one of his small felt eyes somewhere along the past 52 years of loving use and storage. For whatever reason, I had chosen this souvenir from a family trip to the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania - a far cry from a giraffe’s natural habitat - back in the late 1960s ...]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		
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		<title>Forsythia Follies</title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/forsythia-follies/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/forsythia-follies/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Apr 2021 13:27:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=1144</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Regardless of where I have hung my hat, the sight of blooming forsythia warms my heart every spring. Roots in rural Pennsylvania germinated my love of the perfume of rich, pregnant earth coupled with the eye candy of sunny yellow flowers brave enough to promise warmer days ...]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		
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		<item>
		<title>Vacuuming Pastures  (And Other Nonsensical Perfectionism)</title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/vacuuming-pastures/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/vacuuming-pastures/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Nov 2020 05:01:04 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=809</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[My mother was the queen of domestic prowess. Nothing escaped her razor sharp scrutiny for disarray, even when eventually relying only on peripheral vision due to macular degeneration. One year on her birthday, I gave her a card showing an older woman vacuuming a horse pasture through a ramshackle wire fence; the caption: “A woman’s work is never done….”]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		
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		<title>Vintage Vibe</title>
		<link>https://carolacraig.com/vintage-vibe/</link>
					<comments>https://carolacraig.com/vintage-vibe/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Carol Craig]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2020 05:01:59 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Joys]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://carolacraig.com/?p=797</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[My love affair with the patina of age blossomed early in my childhood. Despite my mid-century Boomer upbringing, I have always enjoyed the opportunity to converse with earlier generations via the treasures that surrounded me at home. ]]></description>
		
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			<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		
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