Living in Barnes & Noble for a day.

We definitely took our time checking out of the hotel on Sunday morning, as we had nowhere else to go. We watched the election results in Egypt on CNN before driving to a shopping plaza closer to Richmond, where I pretty much spent the day. We occupied our time with trips to Best Buy, Target, and Chipotle before settling in at Barnes & Noble around 1:30 in the afternoon. AJ changed into his ACUs and left to report at Fort Lee just before 2:30, and from that point on I was on my own. Now, I love Barnes & Noble and will happily spend a few hours there reading or working on something. However, AJ did not return for me until just under six hours had passed. By that time, the computer had died and there were no outlets, and my back was getting really stiff from sitting so long in a wooden chair. I sure was happy to see him! 

Turns out AJ's day went really well. He said that everyone was very kind and helpful, and he met his entire BOLC class during a briefing. There are indeed a few people who have gotten married in the past few months, and some of their wives are here. I told him to be sure to make me some friends. He said that one woman gave him a pitying look and said that he missed his chance to move into his apartment tonight, so he would have to spend another night in a hotel. To which AJ replied that his wife would just be ecstatic to know that she was getting to live in an apartment. And I am! As it turns out, many BOLC students here are indeed stuck living in hotel rooms for four months with no kitchenette. So we are very, very fortunate. Of course, we have pretty much nothing to move into the apartment except our clothes, AJ's equipment, one pillow, and a coffeemaker, but all I care about is the fact that we have a space all to ourselves that I can make into a home for my husband. I am beyond overjoyed. We serve a generous and compassionate God. In the end, I'm thankful that we were told so many times that we would just be living in a hotel, even though it really hurt and frustrated me. Now I know to be grateful for the blessing we have.

We had some amazing sushi nearby before we drove to the next hotel, which is really, really nice. Turns out, the Best Western is in the not so nice part of town and the area we're in now is definitely better. There are a ton of Army people staying here; there were a couple men staring at us as we checked in and eventually they waved AJ over to tell them that they had just finished BOLC and were living here. Earlier in the day AJ teased me for kind of staring at someone at our Best Western who I thought was in the Army, but as it turns out I fit right in. AJ had to make some calls to his squad last night, and then we went to bed early because he left for Fort Lee at 3:30am. We had a really great evening together though; hearing AJ's good news and knowing his first day went so well definitely made my day. So far today I've been spending the day alone in our room, which is slightly lonely but thankfully I've been working on my FAFSA and my mom called for a little bit. I have to check out at noon, but once again I have no car, nowhere to live, and a suitcase with me so I can't even walk far. I think I'm just going to sit in the lobby and hope I hear from AJ soon!