We had our settlement yesterday and voila, we now own a piece of land, and the house that sits on it.

The closing was a bit anticlimactic; everyone we know who owns a home told us how we'd be signing papers for hours, our fingers would be cramped from holding a pen for so long, etc., etc. But apparently loan packages vary greatly in length and our lender has a very concise package. Hurrah. We were done in under an hour, and that includes the minutes we discussed Michigan sports and air travel with infants.

Our favorite part was getting the plat of our land. The settlement agent encouraged us to call the surveyor if we have any questions, and we may just do that. Just to chat. While we gaze at our laminated plat.

The seller is now our tenant, since she will be renting back from us until the end of July. We have six weeks to pack, hire movers, and hire floor refinishers. There is not much else to do to the house before we move in: one of the reasons we liked it so much.

Though we now own property in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and soon we will be residents, I hesitate to say we'll be Virginians. I have nothing against the state (Lee Jackson King Day and macaca nonsense aside). It's just that I was born in Maryland, E was born in Michigan, and we each have moderately strong ties to those places. We've lived in DC for a number of years, separately and then together, and feel strong ties to this city too. Virginia feels foreign.

Also, we'll be living in Northern Virginia, which is a whole different world from Richmond or Blacksburg or Charlottesville, let alone the Tidewater area or the coal-mining towns in the southwest. I'm sure people in some of those places don't even consider Arlington part of the same state.