A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers mentioned that she’d gone to some warm springs for a soak. We have hot springs around here? I asked. Oh yes, she said, and they’re amazing. I decided not to tell my husband about our conversation because maybe I’d want to take him there someday for a surprise. 

That day came sooner than I expected. Saturday morning, what with a wide open weekend and the Sunday evening snowstorm bearing down on us full force, I decided to leap. After I made the reservations, I looked at a map and realized the springs were further than I thought. Oops and oh well! Looked like we’d be having an adventure. 

I told my husband that we were going out that evening and he had to be ready to go by 2:45. As the departure time approached, his questions increased.

“How far away are we going?” he asked. 
“Two hours.” 
“There and back, or one way?”
“One way. And take your swimming trunks.”

I made him drive so I could “nagivate” (our older daughter’s word), but the trip really wasn’t complicated: just one road the whole way there. Who knew Route 42 went so far?! It felt like we were driving into the hinterlands, which made me increasingly nervous. Had I read the directions correctly? Were we going to the right place?  

(My navigating-to-new-places anxiety is rather PTSD-esque, most likely due to Our Devastating Family Vacation of 2013 in which we made a mistake enroute and ended up on a sewage-infested beach as opposed to the two idyllic bungalows over the water that I’d reserved. I’m still recovering from that one.)

We made it though, and in the orientation, the employee (who reminded us both of an older version of Cunk on Earth) briefed us on the basics:

• The water was 98°F, flowed at 1200 gallons per minute, and was packed with minerals, including lithium (to calm the nerves) and magnesium (to relax the muscles). 
• Thanks to the minerals, we’d probably feel a reduction in small aches and pains, and we’d most likely sleep better than normal that night. 
• To allow for optimal mineral absorption, we should avoid showering for four hours after bathing.
• No talking, only whispering. No photos when people were in the pool, and don’t drink the water unless you wanted to get diarrhea (from the magnesium). 

There were two bathhouses. The pool in the Gentlemen’s Bathhouse was six feet deep and was the same one that Thomas Jefferson bathed in. The Ladies’ Bathhouse was newer, bigger, and the water was not quite as deep. While the warm springs have been in use for 9000 years, the first bathhouse was built in 1761, making it the first established spa structure in the United States.

Because our 5 pm session was at max capacity, Madam Cunk divided us into two groups. My husband and I were assigned to the Gentlemen’s pool.

The building was unheated, the ceiling open to the sky. It was about 30°F outside and dropping. My husband and I went into one of the little dressing rooms and changed as fast as humanly possible. Stepping from the frozen wooden floorboards into the water, my feet tingled so sharply that I had to pause to allow them to warm up before I could go all the way into the pool.

For the next fifty minutes, I dangled from my pool noodle, my eyes closed, half dozing. The water wasn’t that hot, and the cold air blowing across my head was shivery cold, but mostly, I was comfortable. The steam, the lapping water, the whispering voices — it was all so soothing.

And then our time was up and we did everything in reverse, except this time the floor was slick with ice wherever we’d dripped water. 

On the way home, we stopped by Pizza Luca for supper. I’d neglected to pack water or food for our outing, so we were famished. We ordered hot honey sesame wings and a meat lovers pizza, and I got white wine, and we devoured every last bite. 

Back home, my husband was still reeling, not from the warm springs or the supper out, but from the fact that I’d planned a date that was two hours away. I felt fantastic, luxuriously relaxed and satisfied. My skin was so ridiculously silky smooth that I ended up waiting a full 24 hours to shower. 

So there you go! If you’re looking for a fun little adventure, hit up those springs! During the week it’s $30/person for a 50-minute soak, and on the weekends it’s $35.

This same time, years previous: Alpine cheese, how we kicked off 2016, what it means, so worth it.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Fried egg and chipotle on top of my beloved collards.

Note to self: raisin bars are easier, and have a better dough to filling ratio, than individual cookies.

Roasted beef bones transforming to broth.

Simple and nutritious.

Lucky: when my younger daughter works fancy dinners, we sometimes get leftovers.

Raisin bread butt’s got a hedgehog face.

Gleanings from bakery experiments.

Some Christmas ornaments deserve to be year-round kitchen decor.

Cold baked potato, bottle of ketchup, teen boy.

So smooth and creamy: it keeps getting better.

Elbow patch artwork by his sis-in-law.

Inseparable.

Chore boy.

This same time, years previous: do it right, a new dress, how we homeschool: the Suburban Correspondent from Northern Virginia, today…, marching, high on the hog, breaking the fruitcake barrier, the quotidian (1.6.14), headless chickens, buckwheat apple pancakes.

Now that three of the children have moved out, all the household chores fall to me, my husband, and my son. It used to be that I divvied out the lion’s share of the tasks among the kids and then spent my days supervising, training, and correcting. (It was exhausting.) And then they grew up and I made them lists and they did all the stuff. (Like, seriously. For years, I almost never washed bathrooms, hung up laundry, or mowed.)

But now here we are. Just three people with a big old house to keep after.

Problem is, my husband works full time, and my son both studies and works (neither full time), and even though I’m at home much of the time and could shoulder many of the household responsibilities, I am also trying to work full-ish time on Milkslinger. So after some thinking, I came up with a plan.

Mornings, everyone is expected to complete some household chores.

• Husband: the milking, and other random piddlies that he just naturally does, like emptying the drainer and starting a load of laundry 
• Son: whatever is asked of him. (He’s supposed to plan his morning so he has an extra 20-30 minutes reserved for helping out. Does this always happen? No. But we persist.)
• Me: all the food stuff, like making breakfasts and lunches, prepping for supper, starting a batch of yogurt, wiping down counters. 

Throughout the day, I do some “running the household” tasks here and there, like baking bread, doing errands, making phone calls, keep the homefires burning (literally), but mostly I drill down on writing, video editing, and cheese work. 

And then — here’s the beautiful part — late afternoon, the guys come home, and while I cook supper and do the other maintenance kitchen work like cookie-baking, menu-making, smoothie big-batching, apple-schnitzing…

They attack the housework.

Sometimes I write out a list of tasks, but usually I just call things out as needed. 

“Collect all the dirty laundry and sort it.”
“Replace the flytape.” 
“Feed cows.”
“Drainer!”
“Vacuum!”
“Trashes!”

Towards the end of the week, I add in some heftier jobs so we don’t get bogged by too much deep cleaning over the weekend. For example, last night, Thursday, my husband washed the upstairs bathroom, I washed the stairs and the kitchen stove, and then I started putting away the Christmas decorations, which the guys helped with once they finished their jobs. 

Most evenings, we’re done with everything by about 7 pm, at which point we settle in for a cozy evening.

To be clear. We still fight about chores. We drag our feet. We bellow and snarl. We get tired. We fuss and whine. It’s not all roses over here, people. Do not be fooled. But saving the housework for the evening when we’re all around to work together has done wonders for my work schedule, my stress levels, and for the general wellbeing of the whole household.

For now, this works. 

This same time, years previous: caking a painting, she’s back!, the quotidian (1.3.22), my new kitchen: the computer corner, Lebanese dried lemon tea, high-stakes hiking, Christmas cheese, 5-grain porridge with apples, constant motion, cranberry sauce.