Hey there. I'm Hillary. Welcome to The Friendly Home.At The Friendly Home you'll get a peak into what I spend my days doing. Building furniture, remodeling, a few crafts, and cooking for myself and my family. But that's not all. I'm a sucker for finding cleaner ways of living and so you'll find that this blog is written through that lens. I'm learning to live with fewer toxins, eat healthier foods, and spend time with my family in ways that refresh us and enrich our lives. Maybe you've seen that bumper sticker that says, "Green is the new Gullible." If that's true, I hope someday I'll get an honorable mention for my gullibility.
Back in 2008, my oldest daughter, Brynn, and I participated in this study by the Environmental Working Group. The EWG tested our blood to compare the level of flame retardants in my blood to the level of retardants in Brynn's blood. Brynn was two years old at the time and the level of flame retardants in her blood was over triple the level in mine. Scary, right?
Even though our results were consistent with the hypothesis, and even though I understood the hypothesis when I agreed to be in the study, our results left me surprised and frustrated and annoyed. I thought we would be the exception. Since then, I've slowly been finding ways to clean up my home environment and the food I feed my family. I've become pretty passionate about keeping a less-toxic home and you'll see that come through in the blog. My family has also changed the way that we eat, so that our bodies are armed in the fight against the toxins we encounter in our home, school, and work environments.
But who is the woman behind this blog, really? I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. I left California after high school to go to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I spent one summer during college learning to be a river guide for a whitewater rafting and rock climbing company in California. The owner of the company asked me to come back full time after graduation...as the office manager. Instead I went to grad school and ended up with a second degree in Communication.
College was where I learned to watch (and play) ice hockey and eventually fell in love with my husband, Scott, over cheap beer and conversations about football and whitewater rafting. He'll never forget the time I caught a long football pass one-handed and promptly fell backwards over the bushes. I'll never forget him tasting dim sum for the first time -- willing to try every single plate that came by on the cart no matter how strange it looked. After college, we both knew we wanted to end up near the mountains so when Scott found a transfer to Colorado Springs, we jumped on it.
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| Scott's favorite meal: fish tacos at Carmelita's in Sayulita, Mexico |
Scott and I have two daughters, Brynn and Callie. We love to ride our bikes, hike, backpack, ski, and hang out at our local pool. The girls dance, draw, and create whenever they get the chance. I love to create, too. Scott would rather ride his bike.
If you stop by my house while we're eating dinner you're likely to find us eating kale and beans. Sometimes the kids love it, sometimes they don't. Either way, they usually eat it because it's better than being hungry. If you hang out with me on Facebook or Twitter, you might find that I usually send my kids outside to play and that we value time outside together. You might see that my kids craft pretty much whenever they're inside and that I am protective of our free, unstructured time. You might hear about how much I love my city, my church, my kids, my neighborhood, and my friends.
If you leave a kind, constructive, or curious comment on the blog, you'll probably make my day. And you'll probably get a response from me. I love to chat with curious people. Seekers. People who know that we've got a lot to learn. People who want to make the world a better place. I hope I'll get to know you!
