I’ll be answering your questions about SEO, but there are also some other amazing experts in amazing topics. I know some of these women, and believe me when I say they are the best at what they do.

Here are all of the details straight from the source, and I hope to see you there:

Ever wanted to pick the brain of a leading woman in business?

For free?

Well, on January 20th, 2009, TotallyHer is teaming up with some of the smartest business women on the internet to bring you a community service project in honor of President-Elect Obama’s Inauguration Day.

B.A.D. :: Business Advice Day

Marketing. Social Media. Taxes. PR. Market Trends. Branding. Life Balance. Business. Legal.

Liz Strauss, Anita Campbell, Kelly Phillips Erb, Jessica Smith, Kelby Carr, Susan Payton, Miranda Marquit, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, Kelly McCausey, Lucretia Pruitt, Char Polanosky, Barbara Jones & Wendy Piersall.

No matter what your burning question is, these 13 experts are here to help and give you answers. And yes, we said it before and we’ll say it again:

For free.

Tuesday January 20th from 10:00am to 5:30pm Eastern, we will feature one expert and one topic every 30 minutes, with a one-hour break for everyone to watch the Inauguration Ceremony. It will be in a simple chat section of TotallyHer, in a laid-back casual environment where there are no big presentations, no boring material to read, just access to business experts where you get to ask questions directly with the experts who can help you. And, of course, there are no stupid questions on this B.A.D. day!

So what do you need to do to get in on free Business Advice Day?

Simple – all you need to do is show up at the TotallyHer Chat Event with your business questions. Every expert is listed below with their time slot and examples of what kinds of questions they can answer. You can pre-register with TotallyHer before the event to ensure you get access, but you can show up for one question or stay all day – it’s up to you!

Here are a few tips to get the most out of having a B.A.D. day with TotallyHer:

• Type up your questions before the event so that you ensure you get the advice and information that is most important to you
• Visit the websites of our experts to see what other questions they might be able to answer for you.
• Fill out your TotallyHer profile (also free) so that you can do some networking while you are here.
• Help us spread the word and tell your friends! If you talk about the event on Twitter, use the hashtag #BADDay.

Liz Strauss – Building Online Communities	10:00am EST / 7:00am PST :: Building Online Communities Liz Strauss – Successful-Blog & SOBConTwitter – @Lizstrauss Social Web Strategist – I show businesses & universities how to use social tools and build communities as they build their businesses. Example questions you can ask Liz: How can I build more community on my blog or website? Why should I build a community – can it help me to sell more products or services? How can I leverage existing communities like Facebook or Twitter to my business advantage?
Anita Campbell – Trends Affecting Small Businesses	10:30am EST / 7:30am PST :: Trends Affecting Small Businesses Anita Campbell – SmallBizTrends Twitter – @Smallbiztrends Editor of Small Business Trends, an online small biz community reaching over 250,000 each month. Small business success, delivered daily. Example questions you can ask Anita: What can I do in this economy to keep my business profitable? How technology and internet trends are going to influence my business this year? How can I market my product or service to small business owners?
Kelly Phillips Erb – Taxes	11:00am EST / 8:00am PST :: Taxes Kelly Phillips Erb – TaxGirl Twitter – @Taxgirl A witty taxaholic (who knew they existed?!) who knows that paying taxes is painful… but reading about them shouldn’t be. Example questions you can ask Kelly: What are the tax pros and cons of being a sole proprietor vs. incorporating my business? Is [insert weird expense here] a tax writeoff? Do I have any tax liability if I take a prize from a sponsor and give it away to a blog reader? Can you explain the home office tax break? I’ve heard conflicting information as to whether I can use it or not.
Jessica Smith – Twitter	11:30am EST / 8:30am PST :: Building a Personal Brand Jessica Smith – JessicaKnows & MomForce Twitter – @Jessicaknows Chief Mom Officer at Wishpot.com, Chief Mom Advisor for MomForce, mom to preschooler, blogger, and social media/biz dev/mktg maven and consultant. Example questions you can ask Jessica: How do you define a personal brand and why is it important? What is the best way to define the target market of my niche? How do I leverage my personal brand into finding work, clients or customers?
Obama Inauguration Ceremony	12:00pm EST / 9:00am PST Inauguration Ceremony!
Kelby Carr – Search Engine Optimization	1:00pm EST / 10:00am PST :: Search Engine Optimization Kelby Carr – TypeAMom & Foodie Mama Twitter – @Typeamom SEO diva, social network creator/maven, writer, blogger, foodie, traveler, francophile, Asheville afficianado, investigative reporter turned new media mom. Example questions you can ask Kelby: What are the most important parts of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? What tools do you recommend to improve my website’s search engine traffic? Can you help me get more links to my website? What the heck is Page Rank?
Susan Payton – Press Releases	1:30pm EST / 10:30am PST :: Press Releases Susan Payton – The Marketing Eggspert Twitter – @Eggmarketing Internet marketing professional, web 2.0 maven and press release rock star! Example questions you can ask Susan: How do I write a press release? What is the best way to distribute a press release? How can press releases help drive traffic to my website? How can I get journalists to cover my story?
Char Polanosky	2:00pm EST / 11:00am PST :: Web Design and Development Char Polanosky – Essential Keystrokes Twitter – @CharPolanosky Example questions you can ask Char: What do I need to do to get a website up and running? What is the best way to customize a WordPress template? How can I get web design or development clients? How much should I charge or how should I quote web design projects?
Elizabeth Potts Weinstein – Legal & Financial Advice	2:30pm EST / 11:30am PST :: Legal & Financial Advice Elizabeth Potts Weinstein – The Wealth Spa Twitter – @ElizabethPW Attorney and Certified Financial Planner specializing in teaching women solo-entrepreneurs and business owners how to experience holistic wealth in their business & lives. Example questions you can ask Elizabeth: When and how should I copyright or trademark an idea or name? Should I incorporate my business? What the heck is an exit plan and why should I worry about it now if I am just starting my business? Are there things I can do to improve cash flow in my business?
Kelly McCausey – Podcasting	3:00pm EST / 12:00pm PST :: Podcasting Kelly McCausey – WAHMTalkRadio, WAHM 2.0 & KellyMcCausey.com Twitter – @KellyMcCausey Built a thriving internet business doing what she loves; writing, creating, coaching and encouraging others. She’s been podcasting for over 4 years and her WAHM Talk Radio show is one of the longest-running podcasts for moms. Example questions you can ask Kelly:
Lucretia Pruitt – Working with Big Brands	3:30pm EST / 12:30pm PST :: Bloggers Working with Big Brands Lucretia Pruitt – GeekMommy & WalMart’s ElevenMoms Twitter – @Geekmommy Social Media Strategist, Speaker, ex-CIS Professor, Twitter-lover and one of WalMart’s ElevenMoms. Example questions you can ask Lucretia: How did you get started working with WalMart? What are companies looking for when they want work with bloggers? How big does my blog need to be before I can work with big brands? How can I find gigs working with big companies and brand names?
Miranda Marquit – Work at Home Tips & Advice	4:00pm EST / 1:00pm PST :: Work at Home Tips & Advice Miranda Marquit – AllBusiness & MirandaMarquit.com Twitter – @MMarquit Miranda Marquit is a freelance writer, professional blogger and WAHM. She writes on working from home for WorkShak.com, and on personal finance for YieldingWealth.com, and provides professional blogging services for a number of companies. Example questions you can ask Miranda: How do you keep the kids happy when they don’t have school? Is it wrong to pay for childcare when you work from home? What are some ways to avoid distractions during the day? How can you get others to take you seriously when you work from home?
Barbara Jones – Word of Mouth Marketing	4:30pm EST / 1:30pm PST :: Word of Mouth Marketing Barbara Jones – One2OneNetwork & The WOM Mom Twitter – @BarbaraJones Barbara Jones is a 20-year veteran of the music business and has founded a women’s word of mouth marketing network with over 8000 members, working with clients such as Warner Brothers, Epson and New Line Records. Example questions you can ask Barbara:
Wendy Piersall – Blogging & Blog Networks	5:00pm EST / 2:00pm PST :: Blogging & Blog Networks Wendy Piersall – Sparkplugging & EscalateMedia (the company behind TotallyHer!) Twitter – @eMom Example questions you can ask Wendy: Can you give me a quick blog critique? How do I make money off of blogging? How can I expand my blog with additional writers or channels? How can I market myself or my company through my blog?

• An analysis of your current site to determine what level of optimization currently exists
• A detailed report with a series of recommendations on how to optimize the site, encompassing technical changes (such as plugins recommended specifically for the blog or content management software you use) to content changes.
• A list of recommended keyword phrases customized for your blog or web site to help you in developing new pages and content to drive free, organic traffic to your site.
• A punch list of SEO mistakes your blog or site is making, including steps you can take to fix those mistakes.
• A 30-minute instant messaging chat one-on-one after you have reviewed the reports to answer any questions you have about SEO on your blog or site. This can be via whichever instant messaging program you’d like (Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Google Chat, Skype, etc.)

If you are getting this as a gift, just enter promo code “SEOholidays” in the order form to get the package 50 percent off. Since it’s a new service I am offering, I am providing it half price for a very limited time to help get the word out and to make it affordable for bloggers.

If you would like to make it a gift, that is no problem. Just check the gift option and I will either send you a pdf certificate you can print and give the recipient, or I can email that person directly with the gift certificate.

Find out more and order the SEO Makeover.

Each day is a new contest, and it’s a new chance to win. I wish everyone luck! Please check it out and tell your friends.

You only get 24 hours to enter each of the contests, so check 12 Days of Giveaways daily!

This is an amazing day, and the meaning of it, the meaning of its historical significance, defies words. It defies eloquence and statements and cadence and words woven poetically together. This is the dawn of a wonderful new America. This is the first time in my life I can truly say my heart is swelling (I can physically feel it!) with pride in my country.

I’m sure that statement alone will lead people to bash me in comments, and do that if you will. But I am telling the truth, and I’m sure I am not alone. Here’s why.

I am part of Generation X. We are a generation of cynics and doubters. I have voted before, sure. But I’ve voted against, not for. I’ve voted to keep someone out, not put someone in. The examples that were set before my generation, as we grew into teen and adulthood while the ’80s turned into the ’90s, made us jaded.

In the ’80s, this is what we learned: power, money, corruption. These are the values that make things happen. Politicians can’t be trusted. In the ’90s, just as I and my fellow X’ers first entered the workforce, a recession hit. It isn’t one that gets talked about much, but I remember it clearly. I remember friends who had college degrees and couldn’t get hired at McDonald’s flipping burgers. This was our welcome to adulthood.

As we matured and evolved into adults, the dot-com bust in the early 2000s hit. We learned that security, especially job security, means very little.

We also don’t tend to be loyal just because we’re supposed to be. We’ve been screwed. We know better. You have to earn it.

In the year 2000, we got one lesson: your vote doesn’t matter. That just reaffirmed our lifelong lesson that there’s little point in caring, or bothering.

In the year 2004, I got another lesson: most people in America seriously were willing to re-elect George Bush despite the overwhelming evidence he is a cancer on this nation. I remember the horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach… that feeling that I really lived in a country where so many people think so differently than I do.

And that’s not because I am a bleeding heart liberal. I have voted Republican before. It was because it was so painfully obvious to me how horrible Bush was for this country, I couldn’t imagine millions of people disagreeing. Most people. More people than not. Wow. That scarred.

I can remember growing up and hearing stories about J.F.K. and I couldn’t quite grasp being that excited about a politician. That inspired. Believing in a leader like that. It was unfathomable.

Today, I get it. I get it. I so get it.

As I watch the news and see the people of the world cheering, as I see the hope this inspires from my home state of North Carolina to people thousands of miles away, I get it.

I have never been excited like I have this whole race, even back from the days of the primaries. I’ve never been so teary-eyed every time a politician speaks. I’ve never felt such hope for the future as I have hearing Barack Obama speak.

I never thought I would live to not only see women running for offices in the White House, but to be at a point that I could comfortably vote against a woman in the White House. Twice. That is true women’s rights, in my mind. If I only blindly voted for Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin just because they are women, that would be sad.

I know I can’t speak for a generation. I know it’s insane to even attempt to. I’m sure I will get slammed for even daring to consider it. And maybe I am way off-base. Maybe most of us in our 30s now are full of sunshine and hope and fairies and rainbows. Maybe I missed a memo.

I just know that I am a cynic, and Barack Obama has made a believer out of me. No matter what happens in the next four years, if he has this effect on even a small portion of our country we will be in a much, much better place. This will be a much better world. I believe.

Have you posted about Obama winning the presidency? Please comment below and leave CommentLuv selected, and it will automatically provide a link to your latest post. I would love to have a compilation of post-election day posts here.

I feel like there are some area in which I’ve really come a long way, and then others where I haven’t even scratched the surface.

I’ve started actually cooking recipes from scratch from my many, many cookbooks just recently. That was definitely on my “meant to do but never do” list for ages. I also used to kill anything that grew in dirt. I actually have harvested quite a bit of fresh homegrown organic tomatoes, peppers, and herbs.

I now currently have a pretty awesome fall and winter garden going, and I have so many pumpkins emerging in my front yard it will be a challenge to use them all. I have been teaching my kids about the importance of these issues, including a fun visit to a local orchard to pick our own apples and pumpkins.

I definitely have focused a lot more on buying local food products, as well as making my own food from scratch much more often and buying far less prepackaged foods.

But then there are also so many things I haven’t gotten to, or haven’t mastered like I had hoped. I have purchased graham flour and even a very cute set of animal cracker presses to make my own healthier, homemade snack cookies for the kids. All of that has just sat in the pantry.

I have, however, finally nailed down my three primary Sustainable KJitchen Project Challenges. I am betting many of you have similar challenges, so I will address each one and the solutions that have worked or that I plan to try.

Sustainable Kitchen Project Challenge #1: Time

This has to be, by far, the biggest challenge for me. I constantly feel like I’m fighting to steal a few moments to do something related to this project. In some ways, those stolen moments work out. I come to get antsy each afternoon to go tend to my garden, even though it’s just a couple minutes’ time of rushed watering and picking. Shoot, my whole fall/winter garden was planted pretty much in spurts of weeding and tossing out seeds.

I’ve got a plan to improve this situation. I plan to have one day a week set aside for food. I am hoping even if I just dedicate naptime once a week to baking bread or making a stockpile from scratch of a food I buy prepared now or canning something from the garden, this will eventually make a huge difference. We’ll see if I can actually stick to this.

Sustainable Kitchen Project Challenge #2: Money

Right from the beginning, I learned something. Having a sustainable kitchen doesn’t come without a price, especially at the front end. In many cases, it does pay off in the long run by saving on the expense for buying produce or buying pricy packaged foods. But it would be very easy to spend way more on going sustainable than you spend just buying items at the store.

A couple ways I have solved this is to simply go with the cheapest route, not the easiest or coolest. I almost always start from seed for the vegetables, for example. Then if they don’t make it, I’m only out a couple bucks. Also, as I go through this process, in many ways being sustainable means reducing your dependence on buying things.

For example, once I get some nice compost I won’t need to spend so much money on organic vegetable garden dirt. I am spending money buying canning jars, but I can reuse those. I am also taking one project on at a time. Instead of spending a fortune buying gear and supplies and ingredients for everything I want to try making, I do a little at a time.

I also go vintage when I can. I have found some pretty cool finds, from vintage cookbooks to kitchen gadgets to furniture (do you know about the coolness that is the early 20th century Hoosier cabinet?… I am in a quest to find the perfect one right now). Thrift stores, antiques dealers and Goodwill shops are all great places to forage for nice kitchen supples, and it is supporting the sustainability notion by recycling instead of consuming new products.

Sustainable Kitchen Challenge #3: Space

This is another truly pesky one. My kitchen is way smaller than I’d like. I have almost no counter space. That means even when I have the time and money challenges conquered above, I have no good place to work so I avoid it. I have gone on a mildly psychotic binge of buying cheap baskets and bins to try to get better organized, and my next step is to get above-mentioned Hoosier.

These are kitchen cabinets that are designed to be baking centers, and I hope to make this cabinet my cooking from scratch epicenter. They even have these amazing bins for flour that lead below to a sifter. You can find them in antiques stores for anywhere from $200 to $1,200 (and I’m sure even higher). It’s certainly not cheap, but it’s an awful lot cheaper than buying new built-in kitchen cabinets and counter! And no new trees need to be sacrificed for the cause.

So those are the challenges I have faced. I am still working towards Sustainable Kitchen bliss. I have lots of work left to do. I hope next year that I can post a killer, cool picture like this amazing canning mania pantry photo.

And I’d love to hear from you. What challenges do you have to pursuing your kitchen goals? What solutions have you found? And are you up to join me in the challenge? If so, I will let you know when I get my page with cool SKP badge posted.

_{Photo of girls picking apples, © Kelby Carr, photo of Hoosier cabinet, public domain photo at Wikipedia.}

1. My first flight was with Air Force One. Well, more like Air Force Two. My dad was covering Reagan in the White House, and they let members of the White House Press Corps bring family on a second presidential plane. So we flew to California, where Reagan was headed to his Santa Barbara ranch. And FYI, this flight ruined me for commercial flights. Flight attendants walked by every few minutes with food, drink, baskets of candy bars and treats, even Presidential swag like decks of cards and (yes, I am not making this up) packs of cigarettes with the Presidential seal. Ah, the ’80s.
2. I have had a deathly black thumb since birth. I know I write about growing vegetables, and they even grow and whatnot. But it has taken me 35 years to grow something without killing it. I am serious. You know those plants that are supposed to go in bars because nothing can kill them? Oh, I have killed them. But the fact I am growing my own vegetables is simple proof that being stubborn and never giving up does pay off. After 35 years.
3. Since Dani mentioned this one, I thought I would too. I started working when I was 13. And yes, it was at a newspaper. I worked at my mom’s newspaper, the Journal Messenger in Manassas. I did everything from working the inserter machine to typesetting (anyone remember this, where they paid someone to type the typewritten pages into the computer at the paper?) to handling complaints about newspapers that weren’t delivered. I think it actually gave me a grounded foundation when I later worked at newspapers. I’d already worked in the guts of the newspaper before I was ever a reporter.
4. I was a runner for the AP when I was 12 when Reagan was reelected. The AP used to hire temps to come in for Presidential election nights to pull copy off those wacky old monstrous black printer/fax wire feed looking things, walk them to the right reporter, return and repeat. It was very cool to me, being that I got to have a very late night, experience the excitement of the D.C. bureau on election night, and they actually paid me a tidy about at a time when minimum wage was $3-something. I think I got like $350 for one night, a small fortune to a 12-year-old.
5. I was a total metal head in high school. Not in the cheesed out glam metal way, but the Slayer, Megadeath, Metallica kind of way. I wore black all the time, and even had black nail polish. I also had long hair that went to my butt for the purposes of head banging. Well, that wasn’t the purpose but it came in handy for that.
6. I used to skip school to travel, not just slack off on the couch. My friends and I, on various occasions, skipped school and went to Philadelphia for cheese steaks, went to the beach, and on one occasion I called my dad (in Northern Virginia) from Manhattan to tell him I was at the local mall and wouldn’t be home for a few hours. Hey, I’m not sure what the problem was. These were just the early days of a future travel writer. For real. (Can you see me rolling my eyes? Because I am!)

That was fun!

Now, for me to annoy six people. I’m tagging:

• @calamityjen
• @sandraew
• @HippyGeek
• @mamikaze
• @feelslikehome
• @mmWine

That’s when I realized that perhaps it makes more sense to do the link love thing monthly, and to be more organized about it. Plus, I figured by posting a call for submissions here, all of my readers will see this. So far, I’ve just been tweeting for submissions on Twitter (and I’ll do that too right after I post this).

The other thing I noticed is that the first week of link love I was inundated, and by the second week much less so.

I also had already planned to do a theme. On the heels of the Democratic and Republican conventions, and a whole hunka controversies (including revival in the New York Times of that damn Mommy Wars term), I decided the Presidential election would make a great theme. And when I say posts on the election, I don’t just mean from political bloggers. I want to hear from real people.

I’ll even give you some time. The deadline is September 15 to submit a permalink to a post you’ve written on the Presidential election. There will be no preference to right or left (well, I have my own preferences, but I’ll give link love to everyone in the honor of fair debate and discourse, of course). Just use the form below.

And be sure you include a separate URL for the permalink of the specific post, and don’t just submit a link to your blog. That will be ignored.

Thanks! Let’s blog politics!

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