After 35 days of living the furloughed life, I officially went back to work today, and it was a really good feeling.

While I may have groaned a little bit when my alarm went off this morning, it's certainly nice to feel like a productive member of society again.

Being furloughed for 35 days was rough at times. I tried my best to find some semblance of a routine and forced myself to try to do at least one productive thing per day (even if it was just a workout). But there were definitely days when the stress really got to me and I just wanted to spend the entire day in my PJs watching TV.


A furlough day outing with some of my coworkers

I'm grateful that I live in DC because lots of businesses here tried to make the furlough a bit easier on federal employees.

I wanted to take a quick minute to thank those places.

I'll start with Jose Andres and his string of restaurants. I lost track of the number of times I stopped by one of his places for a free sandwich while the government was shutdown.



I also took advantage of free food multiple times from &pizza and Chopt. I tried to stop by Sweetgreen for a free salad one day, but they had closed early for the snow. Even though I didn't get my free salad, I appreciated the gesture.

I'm also grateful to all the museums that offered free entry to government employees. It was so nice to have an excuse to get out of the house and not have to spend a bunch of money.



I visited four museums during the shutdown: The National Building Museum, Madame Tussaud's, the Newseum, and the Law Enforcement Museum. The only one of them I had been to prior to the shutdown was the Newseum, so I learned a lot at all the others!



I'd also like to thank Rosetta Stone for the free 3-month membership. Having something to do that kept my brain engaged was really important for me. Plus I've been enjoying diving back in to the Spanish language again, and am hoping to keep up the lessons even though I'm back to work.

Daily Burn also hooked us up with free access to workouts online, which was great because I had lots and lots of time to fit work outs in during the furlough!

And lastly thanks to the Players Club, Stella Artois and Timber Pizza Company for throwing a special party for federal workers with free pizza, beer and games on Friday.

I'm so glad this shutdown is over. I tried to make the best of my shutdown time, but sometimes it's just tough. I'm hoping very hard that we don't shut down again in three weeks.