It's a very cold wet day. It's been raining for several days (with some terrible thunderstorms too). The good news is that we got to confirm that our new drainage system works - the water doesn't get up on the new entrance area but goes into the drain and is taken away. The side gravel walk becomes a lake when it rains hard, but everything else is good. That's a definite change from having a swamp in the entire lower yard. Decorative french drains seem to have done the trick! We had several brief power outages as a result of the storms and I discovered that the UPS on the server isn't working - Richard is going to bring me one tonight.

I finished Will's computer and he picked it up yesterday. It's a great machine and was working well. I talked him through resetting and updating his router last night so everything should be secure now.

Rebecca took the bedroom crate on Monday (since Joey will never use it) and I replaced it with the steps to the bed. Joey thought it was very cool running up and down. I hope I won't regret it.

I reassembled Will's old computer parts and am installing Windows Server 2012 Essentials. This is going to be a challenge to learn and I hope to eventually replace the Windows Home Server. It's a shame that Microsoft abandoned that, but time moves on...I'm sure after some work and study I will be happy with the new server.

I have a chest cold of some sort - it's sort of a dry irritating cough. I guess the pollen finally got to me.

Yesterday, after having trouble with Outlook, I contacted Microsoft and had a delightful troubleshooting session with Aaron Snapke. We finally determined that the new anti-malware software I installed on Sunday was blocking DNS resolution - I uninstalled it and all is well.

The benches from Tidewater Workshop FINALLY arrived today - the big boxes are in the front hall. Amazingly, while I was talking to the UPS guy, Joey managed to escape from the gate. I guess where there's a will, there's a way!