It's deja vu all over again

I'm currently experiencing my second 8:45 a.m. of the day.

That's because I'm in Portland, where it is still early Thursday morning. The thing is, at 8:45 Thursday morning, I was boarding a Northwest Airlines flight in Hong Kong, so it's 8:45 all over again. I'll finally be done traveling sometime after 11:00 p.m. Eastern time tonight, when I'll arrive in Washington after a nice tour of the Denver and Charlotte airports.

This is shaping up to be a long day.

On the bright side, the Portland airport has thoughtfully provided me with free wireless Internet access, so even though my body thinks it's 12:45 a.m. Friday, I am going to attempt to catch this thing up between flights.

The past month has been ridiculously busy. I have a bunch of photos I'll post this morning, but we've done, in no particular order, the following:

• Done loads of Christmas shopping at Hong Kong's famous Stanley Market.

• Found a new church home, the Lutheran Church of All Nations in Repulse Bay.

• Hosted a housewarming party for about 20 guests.

• Prepared for a visit from one of Shelly's colleagues, only to have it postponed a week by a major blizzard in Chicago.

• Spent hours reinstalling all my computer software after a hard drive crash. Replaced the hard hard drive after it crashed again. Spent hours reinstalling all my software again. I use this as my main excuse for not updating the blog often enough.

• Completed three separate freelance projects, two of them with my trusty old computer, which is currently being held together with tape and a binder clip.

• Prepared for a long trip to America, where we will be home for Christmas.

We also had to euthanise one of our kittens. Princess Ernie had never been able to put on any weight in the two months we had her, but she never seemed to be ill. This past Sunday, she was fine. Monday, her hind legs were weakening. On Tuesday, she was diagnosed with FIP, an incurable feline virus. By Wednesday, she could hardly walk, and we euthanised her. Having to put two cats to sleep in the past six months should fulfill our quota for some time.

If you're curious about the past four weeks, read on...