DALLAS – Roughly six months into the pandemic, flight attendant Holly Conway still doesn’t know when her job may go back to normal but she isn’t waiting to find out.

“I haven’t worked since April because of all this. It’s been kinda crazy,” she said.

After working in the skies for seven years, Conway thought she’d found not just a job, but her career.

"When I was hired in 2013, I thought this is it – this is my dream, this is my life – I’ll never have to make another resume again,” she said.

Conway was one of thousands of airline workers furloughed after Congress failed last Thursday to reach a last-minute deal on pandemic relief that would’ve funneled some assistance to airlines.

While it's unclear how long the political gridlock might last, Conway isn’t waiting around for lawmakers to strike a deal.

Long before the furlough announcement, she and another furloughed flight attendant came up with an idea to make some extra cash.

“It just hit me like, why not just clean houses? I thought I could do my own thing, work my own hours, my house is spotless as it is – I thought let me go get paid to do it,” she said.

Her new home-cleaning business, Pretty Clean, is only a temporary solution, though. Conway is optimistic things will turn around and she'll take to the skies once again.

“I’m hoping maybe spring or summer of 2021 things start to get back to normal and [we will] get our routes back,” she said.

Conway says she's disappointed but not surprised at political inaction in the nation's capital, and while she's hopeful both Democrats and Republicans can reach a resolution, she says it's important for her to be realistic.

“I just feel like we really have to look out for ourselves and we can’t just sit around and hope things are gonna happen. We just have to go and make it happen ourselves," she said.