Beach Walking

I went for a walk on the beach on Wednesday. I was in Pacific Beach to drop off my mail ballot, and I was owed a celebratory walk from publishing Small and Spooky... so I took a walk.

My shell haul wasn't that great.

But it was a beautiful day and as usual, walking near the ocean just felt good. I could feel my shoulder muscles unknotting, and my sense of joy returning. It made me wonder just how much I'd give up to live close enough to the beach to be able to walk on it every morning. My backyard? Definitely, particularly once the kids are older. At least 500 square feet off my house size? Ummm.... that might need to wait until the kids are out of the house. The ability to walk to my kids' school? No way.

So, I'll just make the drive (admittedly a short one) and visit the beach occasionally, instead of starting every day there.

I should try to swing more frequent walks there, too. My kids like walking on the beach almost as much as I do. Maybe we can go more often on the weekends. I could go walk on the beach instead of going for a rollerblade by the bay on Friday afternoons, but I like my rollerblade routine a lot, too. When it isn't crowded, there are lots of birds. And I like the motion of rollerblading.

Clearly, the only answer is that I need to meet more goals so that I can take celebratory walks more often. The next Annorlunda Book release isn't until January 4. I could meet some sales goals with other books, but that is likely to be a stretch. The most likely goal I could meet before the next book release relates to the growth of the Tungsten Hippo mailing list. As it happens, I've decided to start running monthly giveaways on Tungsten Hippo, and maybe that will help build the list. I posted the first giveaway, for Justin Fox's Unspotted, today.

Of course, I have some thinking to do about my strategy and goals for next year. Walking on the beach is good for strategic thinking, too....