It was such a simple plan.

Hire a housecleaner. She'll have the house to herself and can wipe down walls and mop floors to her heart's content and I'll have one less thing to worry about before our party on Saturday. Of course, things are not always as uncomplicated as they should be. Our carpenter has been working overtime all week on an ever-moving deadline (I'll be done Tuesday, no Wednesday, ummmm Thursday) and every day I reminded him that he needed to be gone by Friday and every day I was assured it was not a problem. He then showed up Friday morning, but promised he'd be done in a couple hours and out of Casey's (cleaner) way. When I got off work at 4PM, Eric and I headed to the house to check out the progress. Imagine our surprise that not only were there power tools strewn all over the entry room that had not been touched, (nor the den and half the guest bedroom- which had a baby blanket and toys set up on the floor) but the wife and kids (ages 3ish and an infant) were there as well. Not yet thinking about the implications of this I went about other work. And Casey exclaimed "Good! She (toddler) can follow you around now!" I guess I wasn't interesting enough as she actually went upstairs by herself and wandered around while Eric was staining (this I didn't know until later tonight). And I'm still not putting all of the pieces together. After toddler spilled coffee all over the swept kitchen floor and walked across the newly mopped living room floor leaving trek marks through it (she's bringing in stuff from the rooms that haven't been cleaned because they are camped out in them), mom decided it was time to go (or maybe she saw the steam starting to come out of my ears). Casey finished the guest bedroom and bath (it's now 5PM) and said, "I'm really sorry Mary, but I'm afraid this is all I'm going to get done today. I'd have done it differently and gotten everything finished if I'd known it was going to be so crazy around here!" Now the pieces are starting to fall into place. "Hey Casey- HOW LONG has the whole family been here?" Because I was thinking they'd just popped in a few minutes ago to day 'hi'. She looks at me and I can tell she doesn't want to snitch, "since sometime around 2 this afternoon." OK, now my head is going to explode. So, having paid someone to clean the house, I will now have to spend 2 hours wiping the rest of the sawdust off the walls and mopping the floors in the unfinished first floor rooms...Oh, and re-mopping the living room...and it's not like I don't have lots of other stuff that needs to get done before we have friends over tomorrow...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! So, yeah, I did. Feel free to share your contractor horror stories in the comments section because misery LOVES company!