Author Archives: René Groom

It was billed as a “step back in time,” and it didn’t disappoint. You could sense it even in the air around you. You could literally breathe it in, the subtlest hint that somehow time had been stopped and rolled back for the briefest of moments. I first wrote about this event in my post “Summoned by the Queen,” but even I could not have envisioned what a sweet weekend we were in for. Maybe I wasn’t even fully aware of what we had been invited to participate in.

Plato says, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” I believe that to be true. If anyone ever asked me to name something that I counted as one of the top blessings in my life, the answer would come easily. It would be that I have friends who are willing to play with me.

It seems that time has not been sitting around waiting for me to catch up with it this spring. Never has it been more evident that time is not respectful of people; it tends to just keep on pushing through, regardless of whether we are mindful of it.

I was reminded this week of how much I really enjoy the public library. As I was preparing a little presentation for the Rathdrum, Idaho Library, I couldn’t help but to think back to all the times my kids and I spent in our community library when they were little.

Spring has sprung in our valley. It has been here for a couple of weeks, yet I have been feeling much like I did as a young mom, when my boys would wake and hit the floor running while I was left rubbing my eyes and clumsily reaching for a cup of coffee, not quite ready to greet the tasks at hand.

Have you ever had those moments when you just get so emotionally exhausted trying to figure out the next step? You know, times when you find yourself praying—begging really—that a plane would fly past pulling a banner with the answer clearly written on it? Boy, I have. I find myself standing at the crossroads of change and I feel frozen as I debate the “right” path. I would imagine that no matter what one does for a living, we all take pause to evaluate life from time to time. Yet now that I’m finally doing what I always dreamed of doing, it is easy to be convinced that dreaming of more is somehow selfish.

One of my favorite pastimes is to visit other farmgirls’ blogs. It is just one more way that I gather evidence of all the brilliance in the world.

However, I must now say good-bye to that part of my life…Okay, I’m just kidding, but after last week I will be more cautious as I enter through those virtual gates.

I love the wildness of springtime in Prosser; it resonates with my own spirit somehow. I love when flowers pop up out of seemingly nowhere. Well, all but the tulips that keep cropping up in my Shasta beds. They irritate me, although I have to give them their due. Every year I am convinced that I have killed every last one of them…and every spring they seem to come back with a vengeance. Although they are my least favorite flower (if they were yellow, white, or purple ones I would be fine, but these are red and orange), and I dislike them with a passion, I have become fond of their tenacity.

Sometimes something as simple as answering the phone can change your ho-hum day into the most perfect one. It is in those moments that a beam of sun is somehow interjected into the drabness of a winter’s afternoon.

Okay, first things first. Some of you asked me to post my goal board, so I wanted to make sure that I did that. It has been fun going back over the pictures and taking stock. I can’t believe where I am compared to where I was two years ago as far as meeting my dreams and goals.