We are finally moved into our own house. We didn’t buy a house in Northern Virginia because I felt like my employment had to be stable and it wasn’t much. Heck, I even changed career paths while we were up there. The Elf didn’t much want to buy a house either—to afford a nice place we’d have to move well away from the city. To get a close place, we’d have to mortgage our souls. And, of course, we wanted to move out of NoVa for years.

We didn’t really intend or expect to buy a house this soon, either, a story I’ve heard from a lot of people about their first home purchase. But we started looking, and then we found one we wanted, and we bought it. And here we are, homeowners.

Now, this wouldn’t be Thudfactor if I didn’t point out that we bought the house with significant government assistance. It’s not just the USDA Rural Development loan that got us a good rate and let us purchase with no money down. Nor is it just the $8,000 tax credit first-time homebuyers get. Those are obvious helps. We could not have purchased without either of these.

But it’s also the laws guarding the contract process, the building codes which serve as guidelines to whether or not a building is safe, the legal framework that’s been created to help ensure both parties live up to their responsibilities. We’re in Appalachia, which has a bit of a radon problem—so thanks also for the CDC and the EPA for their work in radon research and mitigation.

I’m thankful for the public utilities—water, sewer, trash collection—as well as mail service. We signed up for DirecTV service when we moved in and imagining having to go through a similar process to decide who gets to get water to my house or deliver my mail. Yikes.

We were thrilled with our private sector help too. Our real estate agent Jeremy Hart was patient and very helpful. So were our mortgage brokers at Alcova, who helped us find the right mortgage, locate a lender, and apply. The process would have been much more painful without them. Local outfit Robert & Sons packed and moved us, and without their services we would probably still be dragging things from the apartment, one U-HAUL van-full at a time.

Of course, we still need to unpack, organize, and make this space home so we feel like we have one. I don’t think anyone can help us with that. That’s entirely our job. So I better get to it.