I haven’t updated the blog in ages because I’ve spent the past several weeks packing things up in LA and moving to Austin. The packing itself went fine, although some members of the family enjoyed it more than others…

In fact, some members of the family didn’t do any packing work at all.

Loki, I wouldn’t get used to that Barneys bag. We just bought a house, kitty. Our days of shopping at Barneys are done for a while.

After a rather irritating start to the moving day (which I don’t need to get into), our stuff finally made it onto a truck. (Our total moving weight, for the curious: 9060 pounds. WTF?! We have 4.5 tons of stuff? Seriously?

The drive was fine, but a little long. We left LA around 9pm on Thursday, July 24, and we only made it a few hours on that first day. We took Interstate 40 most of the way. It’s a lot prettier than Interstate 10, as demonstrated by this photo in New Mexico, showing a thunderstorm in the near distance.

We arrived at our new house around 4pm on Sunday the 27th. The next afternoon, this little guy spent most of the afternoon hanging out just outside the family room door.

The deer are great — and there are a zillion of them. We’re fans of the deer. The spiders — not as much. (Is this one poisonous?  ‘Cause he’s just outside the front door…)

On that Monday, we learned that our stuff was all still in LA, and probably wouldn’t leave LA before Wednesday. At that point, our furnishings in Austin consisted of an Aero bed — and that’s it. So we went to Target and bought two $20 child-size beanbag chairs and a small television. It all felt very collegiate — but with nicer flooring than I ever had in the dorm.

Here’s another shot of how we lived for a week until the movers arrived. Actually, for comparison, first, here’s what this room looked like when we bought the house…

… and here it is currently, or at least the way it was before any furniture arrived.

And here it was on the day the movers arrived. My TV! It made it safely! I gotta say — spending a week with a 19″ screen made me appreciate my big screen anew.

Here’s the “before” shot of the dining room…

… and here it is right before the movers arrived. New paint, new floors, louvered doors to the kitchen removed, new baseboards. What you can’t tell here is that all of the walls and ceilings were originally textured (like with a sharp sandy material) , and now they’re perfectly smooth. Our contractor rules.

Now we’re waiting on installation of lighting (there’s a bad-ass black crystal chandelier coming for the family room), and delivery of the new sofa (made of recycled plastic bottles!), and other general decorating. More soon…