How does this happen?

Somehow life got away from me again this week. You would think, in this economy, that a young man would be glad to have someone finance his business startup, right? We took the chance because we'd known this fella for 10 years and had watched him mature into a hard worker, and so when he approached us to propose that he do the renovation on my family home we gave him a chance. Last week we had to fire him and hire another more-established contractor to finish his work. Which involves sending carefully worded letters that let him know why he was fired so that we can take him to Small Claims Court to recover the costs incurred in paying for the second contractor. And then cleaning up the mess he left behind because he decided that partying at the house was a priority. How does this happen? Did he not listen when we and the local Small Business Administration told him that construction work is hard and that being the boss involves solving problems? His average work week these past 2 months was 10 hours/week which will not finish the renovation in this decade! This is his little 'Nintendo Nest' in my mom's bedroom.....I spent yesterday morning emptying bottles and tossing his garbage.




















The the piles of construction materials which require us to hire a dumpster, fill it ourselves and have it hauled away.















And then we hired a contractor to put down new flooring, so next week there will be TWO table saws and at least 3 guys in the house making noise and sawdust. But at least we can finally see some progress in the renovation and are more confident that we'll be able to move in before June. Yay!!


I'm still plugging away on the Red Dog Redux Shawl.






When it's finished I'll redo the photos on my pattern and post it on my Etsy site and in Ravelry. It's a very easy shawl to knit with two different lace edgings--a shorter one that goes rather quickly and a longer one which I love to death and which takes longer to finish up. I have about 8 repeats to do and then the blocking--should be done this coming week. Then I need the weather to cooperate so I can get decent photos outside.