People are always surprised to hear I've been living in the same place for nearly five years now. I love my loft - it's perfect for me. It's been a while since I went through my last redecorating phase... and now I feel it's that time again. 

The first item was this beautiful lamp that was on sale on Amazon for $170 (!!!):

I got it yesterday - and I love it. Perfect height and great character (channels that inner Pixar!). 

I took the second step today: I sold the dining room set my parents gave me when I moved out here. I put it up on Craigslist for $100 (which is a helluva deal), and it went pretty quickly. I've been saving up credit card gift cards - I'm going to cash all those in for the Pottery Barn Benchwright Table (but I'm not going to get those atrocious chairs - I'm opting for two benches instead). 

Of course, the world being what it is, there is actually a MUCH cheaper alternative to the Benchwright set - check out the "Vineyard" dining set on American Furniture Warehouse - the benches look strikingly similar, AND the price is about half. Unfortunately, after delivery, the price comes out to be about the same as what it'd cost me to get from Pottery Barn. 

In any case, I'm patiently waiting for my gift cards to arrive so I can cash them in at the local Pottery Barn... fun!

The loft continues to be a work in progress. Swapped out the old white shelf for something more consistent with the color theme of the place:

My place is woefully in need of storage space, so this actually helped out a lot.

Now I just need to fill out the lower compartments with things. Maybe fishtanks. (Ha-ha, just kidding - remember when I used to have three fish tanks? What the heck was I thinking?!)

Seriously - got suggestions?

This year's Christmass tree was not as perfect as last year's, but it's still pretty :)

I guess you're supposed to get these after Thanksgiving, but I had a free evening, so I drove down to Chula Vista and picked up a tree:

Will post after pictures in a couple of days after I'm done decorating! (I love the smell of pine needles!)

A picture of the coffee table I got this past weekend (Thank goodness for the Citi Forward card with its insane points for eating out to make this affordable):

One of my many weird quirks is spreadsheeting of my car's gas mileage. I track every gas fill-up: the date, the mileage, and the total spent. I started keeping this data with the intention of one day figuring out the long-term value of owning a Mazda 3 versus getting a hybrid (I almost bought a Prius three years ago).

Some numbers from owning the Mazda3 for three years:

• Total miles: 16,462
• Total gas consumption: 533 gallons
• Average MPG: 30.85
• Average price per gallon: $3.02
• Total spent on gas: $1,611.58
  

If I had gotten a Prius, assuming a 46 MPG, I would have spent $1,081 on gas. That's a difference of about $600 spread over three years. With a price differential of ~$8K at purchase time (even with the $3K tax credit), I managed to save significant amounts of money by getting the Mazda3.

And as a general three year review of the Mazda3? I love the thing. Getting it in Carolina blue was a mistake; if I could go back, I'd also get the hatchback. My one complaint about the car is that the angle of the back window causes it to catch a LOT of dust - it gets dirty incredibly easy.

But besides that - it's a fun car to drive (pretty responsive), perfect size for the city, well sized for passengers, low maintenance (no problems thus far), and has managed to be able to transfer almost all the furniture I've bought without a problem! (This streak was unfortunately broken today when I mistakenly assumed the Benchwright Coffee Table from Pottery Barn came in pieces - it comes in one big piece).

(And now I finally have a coffee table!)