What my furloughed self has been up to

My downstairs (half-) bathroom is a nice new color. Painting it was a tremendous pain in the ass; I don't know how I ever painted while working (actually, I do: painting empty rooms is a lot easier than painting bathrooms, although those were a pain, too). Anyway, the half-bath looks good (well, better; at a certain point, you settle for good enough). It's all the same color now, whereas before there were patches of different shades where pieces of wall had been cut or broken out.

I'll paint the upstairs bathroom tomorrow, once I get paint. Should be easier, since most of the fixtures are on the tile, which I'm not painting. It'll just be three rectangles of open wall, more or less. I'm thinking pumpkin or another rusty orange. Oh, and I'm arranging to get my (non-existent) "attic" insulated.

It's a good time to have gotten a $hit-ton of CSA veggies. I sauteed down most of the greens (kale into the tofu scramble; mustard greens on their own as topping for potatoes; bok choy in a stir-fry), with more kale and salad greens to go. I made "fries" out of the butternut squash and turnips, and roasted the other roots (potatoes, beets, sweet potatoes) whole. I also made mom's mushroom-barley soup, in honor of mom's birthday tomorrow. I used her mushrooms, too. It came out as more of a stew than a soup, but it's amazing nonetheless. The cast-iron dutch oven is great in many ways, but it's harder to tell what's going on in there unless it's really bubbling.

Gracie was happy to have me here at first, but now she can't understand why I'm trying to do stuff when she's trying to sleep. She's been pretty good about it, though.

Last but not least, my one-act play got a staged reading as part of a night of (all excellent) one-acts, and it was very well received. The actors loved it, said afterward that they'd miss saying the lines. And random people approached me afterward to say that they loved it. All in all, an amazing experience.

I've been using my time very well. Can I go back to work now?