Last July when I went to San Francisco for Blogher’08 I stopped in a tourist shop and picked up some San Francisco Sour Dough Starter. I gave my mother a package and another to a friend.

I kept a package for myself and began following directions. It said to put the starter in a warm dark place for several hours. So, I figured the oven would be great.

My husband preheated the oven for some wings. Plastic bowl melted all in my Sour Dough Starter and my foray into fancy breadmaking was foiled.

Now, it’s probably not that complicated for Marye Audet who writes Baking Delights.

But, for me it’s proven to be quite a challenge.

My good friends made wonderful bread every single day like clockwork. They gave me another starter.

I decided to get creative and added garlic and parmesan cheese to my “sponge” and pretty much killed it. Don’t add that to starter – add that to dough.

I have ruined 3 sets of starters, mainly because I did not understand the steps that involve “the sponge” and “the starter.”

Maybe this has happened to you before – where you read the directions over and over and over and every time you draw a blank. Huh?

I logged onto

All Holiday Cafe to see if Katelyn Thomas could teach me how to use the starter to make more starter and a sponge, but no. She did have a lot to say about Making Gingerbread Houses, but the kids and I already did that.

They say the 4th Starter is the Charm.

No one says that, but, practice makes perfect, right?

When my friend gave me the last starter and announced there could be no more because he was moving to Alabama I Googled Sour Dough Bread and found these great instructions by S. John Ross.

And now I’ve been giving bread away all season. It’s so easy to make two snakes and braid them into a holiday wreath or a candy cane. This would, actually make my friend Jen from Jlogged.com very proud. I even took it as a white elephant gift for my Toastmaster’s party and my Vow counselors loved it.

Making dough has also been keeping my 2 year old Zack out of trouble. He likes to roll and pound and squish and smack it.

Post from: Blisstree

Sour Dough Bread

So, Chevy allowed my family to drive a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid across the country, from Dallas to Salt Lake City, on our way to BlogHer08. You can’t imagine my gratitude (My 1995 van broke down right before we left and we just found out it will cost $900 to fix the air conditioner.)

I was very interested in the hybrid function of this shiny status symbol SUV. Would this type of car save us money in gas?

The answer is not really. It’s an SUV that gets regular milage. Which, is an improvement only in terms of SUV gas milage.

I don’t regularly drive an SUV, I drive a mini-van, so my gas milage was the same. If you drive a small economy vehicle your gas milage would still be worse in the Tahoe.

I also came across a cost analysis on Dave Ramsey. Don’t do it unless you like losing money, is Dave’s current advice.

To get your money back at current gas prices, just going from 15 miles per gallon to 25 miles per and driving 100 miles a week, that would save you $10 a week. To get back your $15,000, it would take you almost 29 years!

My husband surprised me on the way home saying, it sure was nice to have the nicest vehicle in the parking lot instead of the worst.

Really? I hadn’t spent one second thinking about it.

However, when I first started driving it I felt an urge to go around my neighborhood explaining that it was just a loaner. Which points to my own money issues.

The bottom line, it doesn’t suck to drive a Chevy Hybrid Tahoe across the country. But, it’s really a status symbol that won’t save you money and costs $52,000.

This isn’t a very practical choice, economically or ecologically, for the middle class. Yet.

That said, can anyone remember what an iPhone cost last year? It was around $450. This year, people stood in line to pay $200 for one that was twice as fast. (I’m hoping the iPhone is in my economic stratosphere next year).

That’s how new technology works. It becomes more affordable to the middle class masses pretty quickly.

Chevy, and other car companies, will eventually lower the price of vehicles with Hybrid technology and make them even more efficient over the next few years.

If you are buying a new car Chevy makes 8 models that get 30 mpg or more (just not the Tahoe Hybrid).

They are also investing a great deal of money and talent into the Concept Chevy Volt, an electric car which plugs into a common household plug and uses no gasoline and produces no emissions for 40 miles per day.

Chevy has over 2 million E85 FlexFuel vehicles on the road today. These are vehicles that can run on ethanol or gasoline.

They are also road-testing thier Equinox Fuel Cell vehicle, a vehicle that produces zero emissions and uses zero gasoline, right now. Green Car Journal has given the Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell its Green Car Vision Award.

How cool is that?

Thanks again for your generosity Chevy! And thanks for taking gas prices seriously enough to invest in new eco-friendly, budget-friendly technology.

If you need someone to test drive your hydrogen-powered Equinox Fuel Cell SUV in the southern humidity, you’ve got my number.

Image Sources: Tahoe Hybrid, Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me; Volt by Chase Agnello-Dean, Cars.com; Equinox, Hydrogencarsnow.com
; E85 Suburban, roadfly.com.

Post from: Blisstree

Chevy Hybrid Cost Analysis

Today is the last day of my family vacation. My brother, who I only see once a year, left this morning. My other brother, who I only see once a year, left last night.

Bitter. Sweet.

Sweet cause I did get to see them and we’ve had a great time with virtually no drama – but bitter because I have to leave them and won’t see them for a year. SAD.

But really, really bitter because I have to DRIVE home. UGH!!!

I do. not. want. to. drive. home.

Even in a black shiny Chevy Tahoe Hybrid with XM radio and a DVD player and a Navigational System – I do not want to drive for 24 (really it took us 30 hours)!

There’s always this groovy anticipation when you’re driving TO grandma’s house. But driving home – we turned off the air conditioner to save money so we’re driving home to a sweltering East Texas stuffy house and the only thing to anticipate is going back to work.

but, then I have yet to take a single day of my vacation off of work. Didn’t want to miss the opportunity to drive traffic to my site during BlogHer and had to blog about our cool Hybrid experience and well, going home I feel I need a vacation.

Well, off to tourist in Park City, walking around touristy stores with no money to buy anything is always fun.

Then back here to load up 2 times more stuff than we came with – my mother suited us out with food storage in case the economy goes really, really bad – it’s a Mormon thing. Man, I wish I was nicer to my mother as a teenager.

Wish I was nicer to my dad too. Aren’t they cute grandparents now? Such fun and nice and generous and happy and good people.

Post from: Blisstree

Last Day Vacation

When I met Sarah from Findable Blogs sitting next to me in a SEO training I said a silent prayer “Thank you God for Girl Geeks.” She showed me some really cool html code and taught me what a meta tag is and helped me find it. She also went with me to Google.com and now I know for sure, It’s NOT me screwing up my Adsense account – it’s YOU Google.

See the 3rd person from the right? That’s Mona Gable. She’s a political writer and she writes for The Huffington Post. This election she’s covered Edwards, Hillary and Obama. She’s pretty much who I wanted to be when I grew up. She also wrote an article about girls and bras that I hope to link to on Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me when it comes out. She was very warm and I enjoyed her company.

These are executives from Essence, Redbook and Bravo (with our own Lisa from BlogHer – who I L-O-V-E). And yes I did run up to the front with my card and thrust it in the Redbook Editor-in-Cheif’s hand and yes I did stop her in the hall and say, Look I’d just love to have face time with you and then proceed to tell her all about my Empowering Girls writing!

And this is Ellen Gerstein, who writes Confessions of an It Girl and is also a real live book publisher who sat right next to me in the first Speakers Training. I H-E-A-R-T Ellen. She came to my panel – she has a daughter – and I went to hers and it was amazing and wonderful.

Post from: Blisstree

#BlogHer08 Highlights

This is MY view from the panel. I don’t know if there is a picture of me on the panel.

So I had my big BlogHer08 speaking panel, Mirrors: Ours, The Media’s, Our Cultures’ and Our Kids’ speaking panel yesterday and it was a rush.

The panelists were Laurie Toby Edison of Body Impolitic, Tracee Sioux of Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me, Kelly Wickham of Mocha Momma, and Glennia Campbell of The Silent I (also Mom-o-crats and Kimchi Mamas).

Laurie Toby published the transcript on her blog and I’d love if you would hop over and read it. I think it went really, really well.

Audience member: My husband is judging her clothing choices. I think that she’s a little girl, and I think little girls get to wear shorts. I don’t think little girls should be wearing a habit in the summer time when she’s hot. He has this way of messaging to her that that’s not okay, and I am very defensive of her right to be a little girl, and I don’t want her to be ashamed. “You’re a little girl, and you get to just be a little girl.” My husband and I go round and round about that.

Tracee: I have that same issue with my husband. We’ve been to therapy about some girl issues. We have to realize that their job is to protect little girls, but we as mothers sort of have to teach them … There’s this idea in society that if a girl covers up, nothing bad will happen to her, and that’s just plain fiction. Husbands want to do something, fathers want to do something, and we have to teach them. I don’t want her to wear the midriff not because I’m afraid of sexual predators but because I’m afraid you will judge me as a mother.

Truly, I had the best time. It was so encouraging to see how many women are thinking about the complex world our daughters live in and how best to approach the building/moulding of their selves.

Post from: Blisstree

Mirrors: Ours, The Media’s, Our Cultures’ and Our Kids’

Defamation – reasonable listener – something wrong with my meal and manageer was extremely rude and gave examples that it’s false – truth is an absolute defense against defamation – doing it with malace and to harm reputation. If your just saying but this is just my opinion that’s not enough continually show that it’s jut your experience and oponion.

Copyright Law a work is considered copyrighted and protecgted by the law as soon as it is created. Labeling is great, but whether you label it or not, it is copyrighted.

Fair use has to do with commentating and criticism and there have been cases in the news AP case and Harry Potter case. You can see both sides of it but there are 4 factors that the court looks at – what are the factors?

* Nature of the Work

* Amount taken

* Purpose of the Work

* Effect on the Market – really huge. effect on competition. Original creators right can be stiffled by someone else using pieces of their work in a non-fair mannor.

Creative commons – started the org. nonprofit, objective really allow for online digital remixing and creativity to occur even though we live with this weird copyright system. A way for online digital creative commons liscense – some rights reserved license – hand out – restricting access but always getting attribution. Urge everyone to look into that.

Respecting trademarks, likelyhood of confusion,not using it exactly but if it’s in your same market and it could confuse consumers that is a problem.

Liabilities. Starting or in business, comes with responsiblities and costs – not a single answer. What are the tax implications? Selecting management structure going to be like, what your assets are – just for yourself. What can you do from a financial standpoint and personal liabiliy. Limits your personal liabilty from the assets of the company – house and car protected from a claim from a preditor – corporate veil respected and running it as a company.

Terms of use: appropriate rights and taking care of liability.

Allocate risk in agreements everyone shoudl know they can negotiate an agreement. Read it understand it and ask question if you dont understand it and negotiate it. Not boilerplate the way it is.

Collaberative blogs, Silicone Valley Moms blog – not thinking through all issues- coblogging agreement.

Kelly Philips Erb – TaxGirl.com, b5media channel editor

4 times the length of the bible – the tax code.

Income is like everything you get, (even stuff to review) – unless it’s excluded.

1099s – paid you more than $600. If company doesn’t give 1099 you don’t have to report income – NOT TRUE.

IRS is prety smart – claiming large deductions for your work in blogging

Keep track yourself, report all income – worldwide taxation.

Includes services and products – very aggresive review on product reviews – if it’s disposable it’s not income for me. If I eat them it’s not income.

Like to see matching up – reporting deduction and income.

Ordinary and Necessary

Don’t be afraid to claim a duduction.

If you were not blogging yuou would not be at BlogHer – ergo BlogHer deductible.

Business Cards – that’s a deduction, except for your blog.

Laptop just for me and my work – deduction.

Expenses can be prorated amount of time for use on the blogg

Home office key is that it has to be soley where you work. Section is fine, dedicated works space. Caviate city occupancy tax – chome office deductions will expose you to business occupancy tax for the city. Tax your home office.

Have your income offset by your deductions – not uncommon to have a loss – if I lost $1,000 you can carry it forward for the next year. Do you have a business or a hobby? do you have a motivation to make money? Just for fun not marketing or treating it like a business.

Scan reciepts save it in shoeboxes – know your good with. Don’t buy the software if you’re eally going to shove the reciepts in shoeboxes.

Giveaways – a wash.

If you can physically control something the IRS cares.

Sabrina Parsons, CEO Palo Alto Software – We exist to help people succeed in business. Tools content and advice.

HOW DO I MAKE MONEY? How to I make my blog a money generating activity.

You should be putting a SALARY in the books as a loss. Biggest mistakes poeple make is not paying themselves a salary. Don’t actually have to pay myself $15,000 but put it in the books. Once you start making money you can take that money out of the next year . Figure out some price for the things you do.

Biggest thing you have to do is look at what you’re doing as a BUSINESS. No reason you should be working for free. Take it seriously. Make it your business and once you do that figure out your business goal and figure out what it’s going to take.

1st step to pricing your services.

Connection with freelance writing and consulting services. Seeing you as a person or expert. See what your competitors are doing. Just ask and they’ll tell you and there are salary websites. Salary calculators online.

Freelance websites where people are posting. Type in freelance writer in Google and trying to be a journalist and product reviews. There’s going to be people who want to have your attention. Maybe you’re charging them a commission.

Break it down: I want to make $10,000 then what’s my quarterly goal $3,300.

Become the spammer – contact the companies business development person and then say who you are and what they want. Go out and contact them – be in control of what you want – pick out the top 10 websites and present them with a package. they are soliciting it. Go out and soliciting it. Here’s who I am, this is how many page views I get, here’s my demographics. Use google analytics, you can do all kinds of things to prove what it’s worth.

My stuff is worth what I say it’s worth! Give it a shot – I’ll give it 8 weeks, to be in a relationship. We both bring something to the table. show them how they will be better off. Taking a few risks, maybe some free stuff to prove themselves. Make sure you set it up if you give it for free, you don’t have to give it for free forever.

Post from: Blisstree

Tax/Business/Copyright Notes

Best night ever.

So tired.

Anonymity gone.

Meet wondrous interesting souls. Women. Talk interesting. Fabulous.

Some people know me. Know who I am. Read me. Feels good.

Tomorrow 2:30 is big day.

Met panelists and BlogHers that I love to read.

Foot in mouth?

I hope not.

Caught smoking?

Only when I drink. I quit.

Note to BlogHer – PRINT A BROCHURE!!! Feeling lost or scribbling my own agenda on scrap paper may be more “green” but it kinda pisses me off that I’m mostly feeling lost about where to go next.

Note to most other professional conferences: there IS a way where you can acknowledge children exist - free childcare as BlogHer is providing, or not freaking out if children show up when the sitter cancels. Just ask Lesbian Dad.

Post from: Blisstree

BlogHer08

Aren’t his mirrored sun glasses great? I’ve been striking a pose in them all week. Little kissy face, little dramatic tossing the scarf around my neck, little boogie dance, little check out my cleavage in this top, don’t you wish I had 5 more?

We’ll tourist some more until this afternoon, when I get to go to the speakers training for BlogHer08!

They’re going to teach me proper etiquette when sitting on a panel of four with audience participation.

They’re also having a boxing competition on the Wii at the Speakers Reception. Winner takes Wii home. I’ve been taking that kickboxing class. . .so maybe I stand a chance.

We went to the Exploratorium and I was challenged to drink out of a toilet drinking fountain. This is me pretending to do it. It would have been no problem except for the floaties. I just couldn’t do floaties.

Post from: Blisstree

Touristing/BlogHer Speakers Training

Exhausted.

We stopped at Hole N’ The Rock, Utah where a couple literally build a cave home with 14 rooms. They chiseled the roof, floor and ceilings and it was amazingly functional and still in tact and decorated from the 1970s. Talk about working for your shelter. Check out the website at holentherock.com.
Image Source: Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me

Post from: Blisstree

Hole N’ The Rock

Yes, he did shave his head. Says he has two weeks vacation to grow it out if he doesn’t like it. I knew he could pull it off!

Post from: Blisstree

Half Way – Albuquerque, NM