I intended to post this on my birthday but got sidetracked…

On January 17, 2008, Mark said to me: “Birthdays are a good day to think about the future!” But today, I can’t help but think about the past.

Here is my version of events since my birthday last year:

January 2007: SUCKED ASS!!! I spent my 30th on my living room floor in so much pain. That’s why I celebrated both my 30th & 31st last week.

February: Physical therapy and visits to various spinal specialists along with a boatload of tests. I was still in a lot of pain. On a brighter note, we started house hunting.

March: More house hunting and more doctors. Looked at a 3 bedroom townhouse in Stamford. Hmmmmm…

April-June: Problems x problems = more problems. Our closing date got pushed back by a month and a half – Bad. We found this out after we already gave notice re: our apartment lease – Worse. We were virtually homeless – Disaster! But thanks to Mom for her sofa bed! – Not too Bad. Worst of all, I relented to the fact that I needed surgery to correct my back condition.

July: The moving rush, set-up, unpack, hurry, hurry… need to get things done before August 7th. I can’t stand up for more than 5 minutes anymore. I’m really freaking out and Mark is not helping, because he doesn’t want me to have the surgery until 2008; I can’t do this without him. In the end, we both know it has to be done. Mark gets better and he’s trying not to freak out.

August – December: So I get into surgery prep mode. Blood banked… check. Pre-surgery MRI… check. Pre-surgery CAT Scan, blood type & screen, chest x-ray, lumbar x-rays, EMG, surgical clearance… check check check. Yet I’m so close to calling the whole thing off. Until surgery day comes and I focus on thinking positive. I don’t really remember much… my mom and Mark looking concerned… the anesthesiologist saying “this is going to make you sleepy”. Oh, and someone calling my name when I woke up after surgery. In all honesty, the rest is mostly a blur.

I barely remember anything from the last three months. I was in a lot of pain while my spine was regenerating from the procedure. Mark spent most of his time working his ass off in the basement, and bringing me things even though he’s the worst nursemaid ever. He tried.

So you can see why I have decided to take Mark’s advice and think about the future. 2008 will be our year. We are both doing well professionally. We have a nice house that we own (or will in about 20-30 years). We are definitely in a good place. I’m choosing to focus forward with hope.

Sorry. I was deleting spam, saw this headline, and couldn’t resist. I just needed something funny to break my miserable Tuesday. Of course, it does beg asking how an online meat salesman can ever get an e-mail past the spam filters… )

We now return you to your regularly scheduled podcast. There may not always be blood, but there will always be Sahm. Cheers. Peace. Winning Mega-Millions Tickets.

As you may recall from this April entry, we were on a mission to upgrade and integrate the desks for our new home office.

Originally, I had envisioned two L-Shaped desks to go in the corners of the room opposite the closet and entranceway. S. Rod had foreseen a great disturbance in the Force with that, and suggested a room length slab mounted to the wall so it had no legs to deal with.

However, balancing the new desks against our three seven-foot tall bookcases ruled out the slab idea. Worse, the small width of the room canceled out the L-shaped desk idea too. So after selling our old tables at a yard sale, we moved into our townhouse without any desks.

But inspiration sprung from below. Outside of the turquoise paint color, the second thing we put in the room was the FLOR carpet. We bought those color patterns quite spontaneously, but it turned out to help make our choice much easier.

I had pushed for a more modern look to keep pace with the paint and carpet, and S.Rod found a frosted blue-green glass table with brushed nickel edging and legs that fit in perfectly. Multiply that by two and the new workstation was complete.

Now if only we could have such luck with the studio… Click here for the hi-resolution version. Cheers.

It would be safe to say that the 2007 cyberlife of the Somrod tandem was thoroughly squashed under the weight of reality. Or if you prefer, we are sarcastically proud to present our list of 2007 Excuses:

1. House hunting/researching and subsequent contracting/purchasing/moving to temporary housing/storage/moving in/setting up (MS & SR)
2. Major spinal corrective surgery and subsequent rehabilitation (SR)
3. Six months of clean-up, repair and renovation of 120 year old water leaking basement (MS)
4. Job change in May (MS)

Therefore, our 2007 Online Results are rationally explained:

1. No new art or literature produced
2. No upgrades or revisions to the main website
3. No podcasts released
4. Lowest number of annual blog entries ever
5. Traffic goal from 1/02/07 not reached

Despite that, we are in a better place physically, mentally, and financially than we were at the beginning of 2007— just without the fun outlets that makes us feel semi-complete. Nevertheless, anyone who knows us realizes we’re creatively itching like two dogs who crash landed on the Planet of the Fleas. Hell, people I’ve met this year did not even know I was an artist or a writer! 2008 will be the end of that, I assure you.

Anyway, even if we missed the goal, we still had a moderately better year of unique visitors to the site as you can see below:

Click to see a comparison from 2005 to 2007

Luckily, we’re already hard at work on the new endeavors. So even if the alarm bells are ringing, there’s no fire. I’m even feeling bold enough to set a goal for 2008 unique visitors of 130K. Yeah, dream the MF-ing dream, my friends… you’ve got nothing to lose. Cheers.