Take a hot bath with your goggles on
It was a short, but memorable trip to Tybee Island. Cold ocean water, cool breezes, an Easter egg hunt in the sand. Bike riding all over the island. Treks up the 178 stairs to the top of the lighthouse. Homemade ice cream at the appropriately named "Sugar Shack." 
Kite flying. Bunk beds! Riding bikes in the surf, then racing home to jump into a hot tub to thwart the double pneumonia that surely would result from such cold. Building sand castles. Being buried in the sand up to your neck. Playgrounds! Evenings of card games. Movies. Chips and Salsa. Cotton candy! Even salads that spell out "Tybee" in red pepper. Whew, a lot in a very few days.
"We did so many things this weekend! What did you like best about the beach?" I asked Tess on the drive home. "The hot baths," she said cheerfully, without hesitation. "Those hot baths were FANTASTIC!"
I looked over at Mr Brilliant, smiling as he navigated the five-hour drive home that became a nine-hour drive because of construction. Emma was passed out in the back seat, the sun having done her in. The dog, Blue, was chewing a bone in the back and farting at will, and Tess was smiling a big smile as she continued her exposition of the merits of hot baths.
"We drove five hours for a hot bath? Paying eight jillion dollars a gallon for gasoline?" I said to Mr Brilliant after Tess got distracted by a large shiny truck.
"Yep," he said. "We sure did. Worth every mile."
And so it was. A hot bath in one context (home, boring, predecessor to the dreaded bedtime) is different in another context (beach, necessary to raise the body temperature, in the middle of the afternoon, in goggles).
Hot baths mean more when they are in contrast to freezing in wet clothes after a bike ride from the cold, cold beach. They just mean more. And while we spend a lot of time avoiding the cold, cold ocean and that cold, cold ride in wet clothes, it’s the only thing that makes that hot bath so incredibly special.
We know it is the small things in life that make it worth living. We all know that. It’s the small grape, the bowl of cheerios, not the Official Edict or Big Event. And yet, it’s so hard to remember that, when we are measured in big ways, not small ones. It is so hard to remember; we forget it every single day.
37days Do it Now Challenge
Ride your bike straight into the cold water–take a risk, get messy, explore, tire yourself out. Then take a nice, long, warm bath. Pop some floaty toys in the tub with you, suction cup some goggles on your face and go exploring. Soak, soak.
