Winter vagaries

We had a warm, dry spell yesterday and I went out to do some yard work.
There were bulbs, sprouting hopefully in a bucket, that Jeff had dug up while fixing the sprinkler system. I managed to get about a third of them planted before I got bored and pulled a few weeds.
As I was picking up the weeds I noticed the rhodies  spreading a little further into the common driveway than I would have liked, so I pruned them up a bit.
By the time I got those squished into the yard recycling bin and planted a few more bulbs, I barely had enough enthusiasm for the outdoors left in my bones to snap a few pictures of these lovely water droplets hanging on the variegated willow.

We had a tornado just a little south of us today. It wrecked a few buildings and caused a lot of damage. Tornadoes are rare but not unheard of in Oregon. A friend of mine, who lives just up the hill from us, lost her old farmhouse to a tornado a few years ago. It touched down and uprooted a Douglas fir, which fell on her house and knocked it off its foundation.

I think about monotony a lot. I used to crave it, when my life was a little more tumultuous. But now that it is mine, if I choose it, I find myself going in the other direction.

Even the best minds in the world disagree on the subject.

C.S. Lewis said, The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil. I'm not sure if it makes sense grammatically, but I can certainly relate to the sentiment.

I feel monotony and death to be almost the same. Charlotte Bronte. But dear Charlotte was of a rather depressive nature and should possibly be disregarded.

People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties...they live like ants. Bela Lugosi. One of the greatest thinkers of all time, I am sure.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. Albert Einstein. We should pay heed to Albert, although I do not subscribe to the ideal.

And finally, one for the pirates among us. 

You know who you are. 

There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. James Russell Lowell.