hal's blog

The authors of Cooking with All Things Trader Joe's will give away two free cookbooks exclusively to MomHub members.  To enter, please visit www.cookingwithtraderjoes.com and sign up for the mailing list, entering "MOMHUB" into the "Where did you hear about us?" field.  

The Wall Street Journal recently put more attention on the local mom sites and their use by some newspaper chains.  The article focuses on Gannett's work in this area. Here's an excerpt from A Pitch Only a Mother Could Love.

We know a lot of moms who are struggling with the search for good part-time work. They have plenty of skills, but they also need flexibility given the demands of raising one or more kids. Sue Shellenbarger seems to be following this trend too with her recent WSJ Work & Family entry called "Nice Work if You Can Get It." Here's an excerpt.

Most of you have probably heard of Heather Armstrong's blog Dooce. Sue Shellenbarger digs into the back story in a feature article in the Wall Street Journal. The article uncovers some of the challenges of writing for such a popular blog. She even explores potential revenue models for a blogging business.

Yes you can bring the munchkins to a coffee shop, but is it really relaxing? It probably depends on the environment. Given the local coverage of some UK-based members clubs for "mums," perhaps we should see more of that over here.

What do you like about this concept? What local spots give you the feeling of a club without the fee? 

We have grown accustomed to selecting a gadget or a new laptop via comparisons. Now there is competition heating up for finding the right school. Sites such as GreatSchools and Education.com are providing useful interfaces into an enormous amount of data. These sites even get reviewed by Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal.

We just want to thank everyone who has participated in our community in the past few months. We have learned a lot from your input and are actively trying to improve the experience for you. In the last 30 days our traffic has grown 90%! We know we are starting from a small base, but we look forward to continued growth at a healthy rate.

Be sure to continue to share your joys and frustrations with being part of the MomHub community. We are listening.

We're not the only ones who think MomHub's hometown is a great place to raise a family. Fit Pregnancy recently ranked Portland, OR the #1 city in which to have a baby. Some of our other favorites made the top 10 too, including Minneapolis and Austin.

Although Portland was #1, and jumped up from 2007's #4 ranking, the magazine does take a balanced view of each city and even points out several areas for improvement.

We love great collections of reviews, especially in our hometown of Portland, OR. We're big fans of Portland Mamas Inc. PMI's founder, Marlynn Jayme Schotland, wrote a great city guide to Portland in Cookie Magazine.