'And all you see is where else you could be, when you're at home

And out on the street are so many possibilities...'

I might have chopped the end of the lyrics off there, but house hunting is making us realise there is so much out there and selling this place has not been a bad decision.

We still don't have anywhere to live, but we have vague ideas and plans. And backup plans.

This morning we went to an auction for a 4 bedroom, brand new house in our suburb - and we bid on it. The place should have gone for well over the $700k mark but got passed in at $550k. The man was one of the first few bidders while I stood next to him with what felt like my heart in my mouth. Terrifying. But fun anyway. It is out of our price range at $550k but still such an incredible bargain - to be able to move in somewhere that doesn't need work would be great.

We have a good idea of where we want to live now, after spending all week on realestate.com.au and google maps. Almost literally too. If we weren't at work - we were on websites or looking at places. We spent the whole morning walking around OFI's and auctions in Brunswick. Thats right, using some real estate jargon there. Still haven't figured out what ROW means though. One place said it had a ROW out to the street. I made one of my jokes and asked the man if that meant the place had a moat. As usual the man looked at me in disgust. Mum would laugh at that. A moat would be awesome. The cats hate water.

One place we are looking at needs to be attacked by the paint brush and carpet monster. Or the floorboard monster! But other than that its pretty nice. We'll see. Don't know about putting in an offer before auction now, especially after this mornings effort.

I now fully appreciate the public transport nightmare some people have to endure, living where they do. We looked closely out past Maribyrnong but we just do not think its right that it should take anyone more than an hour to get to work (using PT). Even though we could build a very nice house (thats right - a house) out there.

Also, Subway finally coughed up our bikes. The ones we ate subway for a week for. Haven't gone for a ride yet but they look decent. Doubt we'll ever eat Subway again though. They got delivered to the man at work so we had to go and pick them up at the hospital. There we were (well..there the man was) lugging a bike in a box around a hospital. We got some weird looks from nurses, like we were torturing the sick with the things they couldn't do. It's not like we were riding the bikes. Plan is to ride to work, well for the man at least. If I was organised enough I should keep all my work clothes for the week at work - and then ride in and shower. We'd save over $200 a month just there!

Well, I'm off to see some of the comedy festival tonight so I'd better go and get ready.

- Jen