A hot tub spa can be one of the most relaxing and re-invigorating things that your home can have. Especially in this day and age of monumental stress and consequent health difficulties that many people experience as a result, a spa can be a mental and emotional vacation as you sit in the soothing hot waters and let your worries and cares be soaked away for a while as your inner batteries recharge. Soaking in a spa has also been shown to have rejuvenating effects on the skin.

You'll want to tailor your spa to your own personal sense of aesthetics, landscaping, sunlight, prevailing winds, and of course to any privacy considerations that you may have. But in the end, it's not difficult to have a spa installed on your property. You may even want to consider getting a spa that's not just for personal enjoyment but can be shared at family gatherings or parties.

If you do throw a "spa party" to help get people you care about as relaxed and stress-free as you want to be, you'll want to plan carefully. You don't want anything like a spa party at your home to be a total flop! You should first off plan what kind of music you'll want to play--and of course there does need to be music. Perhaps you should go for the classical music here: yeah, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and all them. Some of you might prefer "New Age" music, though, like Michael Hedges or Irish harp music. You're also going to want to throw the hot tub party at night, for the right mood, so get your candles out. If you're throwing the spa party in the Summer in areas where those evil mosquitoes are known to buzz around, a very good idea for both ambiance and practical concerns is to place and light some Citronella Tiki torches. Place them in a perimeter all around the hot tub.

And let's not forget the fruit juices, the bottles of red, the bottles of white, the beer keg, and the finger sandwiches.

One thing to be careful of in a hot tub spa is the spa-ubiquitous bacterium Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (PA), which can cause urinary tract infections; otitis externa or "swimmer's ear"; dermatitis; and "hot tub lung" among other possible ailments. If you get a rash from the PA, it will appear 8 to 48 hours after you've been infected; it will itch like crazy and may cover an extensive part of your body (like poison ivy); and it will fade away within a week and a half without any treatment.

In the even that your spa becomes contaminated with PA, you'll need to completely drain it, scrub it thoroughly with bleach, and remove the filter and soak it in chlorine (two Tbsp. of granular sodium dichlorine for every five gal. of water).

Let yourself feel like you're royalty from time to time and be good to yourself for all your hard work. A regular hot tub spa treatment can do wonders for your mood as well as your health.