Making Sense of a Mess

I saw this cute genderless hat pattern on Ravelry and thought, "How great would that be for all of the guys in my house for Christmas?!".  I'm not going to name it right now, as I am currently rather ill about the way the instructions are worded for the hat band, which is to say that I think they are worded rather scantily and badly and required me to start over after about 20 rounds when I finally had an epiphany about what the writer wanted me to intuitively do.  I'm also miffed about the fact that the gauge in the pattern isn't working for the yarn on the needles having done a provisional cast on, though it was perfect on the first go around.  I don't want to give the pattern designer a bad rap at this point because, well, in my current and generally agitated state, the problem could be me.

                                

Although I am already trying to whip out the dishcloths and finish a pair of gloves for Rocket (one of which also had to be frogged and re-knit), I need to get this hat done by, dare I say, TUESDAY, as I intended it as a birthday present.  I thought that, despite my rush, this would be a quick knit, especially since it's really just one of those good stress-knit projects where you knit in circles, decrease a few rows, and bind off.  No frills.  Just one color change and mindless knitting.  But, perhaps, the stress is overcoming my knitting.  You see, we hired a contractor to build a barn 8 weeks ago.  By now, we really should have a 3-story building with a roof and only siding left to go on and a few gazillion gallons of stain.  Instead, we have a hole that, turns out is 2 feet shy of being deep enough and a sizeable portion of a 12 ft., u-shaped, load bearing block wall that doesn't pass inspection (or any building codes) and a contractor who doesn't feel the need to use licensed professionals.  There's more wrong with this situation, but you're probably stressed out just from the little bit I've mentioned.

So again, I knit. TUESDAY. This has to be done by Tuesday.