Book Club: Midnight Riot

Wasting time is highly underrated. I’m having one of those weeks where a million little things come up and even though none of them are crises, they’re all a little stressful, pile up, and I find myself getting into the mindset that:

If I can’t do all of the things, I may as well do none of the things.

I know that as a responsible adult I’m supposed to follow that up with how, “It’s OK to feel overwhelmed. You should just make a list, do the things one at a time, and the list will get shorter. blah, blah, blah.” Honestly though, screw the list and screw the things.

Of the many weird jobs I’ve had over the years, one of the weirdest was working as the personal assistant to a motivational speaker. I had to be perky. The pay was pretty good though, and my college textbooks were expensive. Anyhow, she used to always spout quotes and motivational phrases at me to get me into a “championship mindset.” Her shtick was all about productivity at all times. I was thinking about her this morning, as I managed to not write a book club post or knit a geek-a-long square or work on our next pattern for the Cryptid Knits series. I haven’t talked to her in years, and I am certain she doesn’t read this, so it’s not like she’d know, but it felt so good to willfully waste time. I feel way better now than I did when I got up and literally all I’ve accomplished is pants. They aren’t even really pants. They are pajama jeans. I’m not sorry.

The point I’m getting at is, I’m having a blah week, I feel blah about it, and I want to have us all just join hands and shout to the world that we are entitled to spending an entire morning falling down the Rav-hole aimlessly scrolling though patterns and queuing things you have no intention of ever making. I’m positive you guys know exactly how I feel in this. Even our hobby is productive, so in some ways we never stop doing, even in our downtime. I’m not a fancy motivational speaker, but trust me on this, if you feel like putting down the needles and chilling out, just do it. They’ll be here when you get back. They are loyal that way.

This week I’ve been reading…

MarileeRD suggested the Rivers of London series on the book club thread, and I’m basically obsessed with the series now. She described it as if Harry Potter grew up and became a modern day London Cop, and that is a perfect summary. I read the first book, Midnight Riot, last week, and I’m itching for more. This week I’m reading Murder on the Orient Express, because I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t read Agatha Christie before. But I’m excited to get back to more Rivers of London soon.

The book centers around Peter Grant, who sees dead people and is a freshly graduated London cop that is working towards being a homicide detective. In the first book, he gets recruited into becoming an apprentice to the one cop in London that is qualified to investigate magical mysteries. My favorite thing about the book was its tone. It’s dark and heavy and full of some really messed up crimes. It’s also very funny at times though, and even though it doesn’t sugar coat things, it’s written well enough that you don’t feel exhausted or sad from reading it. So despite the violence, it’s really fun to read. Though I guess maybe that just says something about me. If you have read Dresden files, and those were fun, you’ll LOVE these.

I’m not going to spoil what happens, because the big-twist-reveal about the bad guy in the end is great, and I didn’t guess it at all. I don’t want to take that from you.

Currently on my needles…

Every now and then I find myself in the situation where I don’t have anything to show you. We’re really into Mystery Knit-A-Longs right now, like the Nessie Expedition, so I can’t show off my work until after the MKAL is done. Right now, I’m working on a sample for the next coming MKAL, which I can’t show you, and it’s KILLING ME. I freaking love running MKALs, but I hate keeping secrets, which is an uncomfortable dichotomy. I feel like just showing you the yarn won’t ruin it though. And spoilers make me so happy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhelmhPHW8A/?taken-by=doctor_llama

I can’t show you any of the knitting, but here is the yarn for the next Cryptid Knit after Nessie. The project uses both cakes at the same time to do exciting color work without the hassle of having to deal with ends. We designed them so that when you pull from the center, you will always be knitting with two complimenting colors that contrast nicely as they change.

I’ve also been working on some Christmas knitting. In the sense that I picked a pattern, caked some yarn, cast on, and then basically went, “Christmas is a long time away. This can wait.” I have very ambitious knit goals for Christmas this year though, and I’m excited about the projects. I want to tell you what they are, but Jac reads my posts, and the one I just cast on is for her. I’ll post some close ups of it as I go along though, and torture her with spoilers.

~Megan-Anne

I’m thinking of getting “screw the list and screw the things” tattooed right under my caffeine molecule. ;)