July 27, 2020

… A twist on working remotely

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has seen many employees, across a span of sectors, quickly forced to work from home. From the local TV meteorologist bringing you the weather, favorite coffee mug in hand, live, from a kitchen studio complete with the five year old’s masterpiece on the fridge as a backdrop, to a Zoom meeting with your corporate legal advisor, looking more the part of gardener than attorney. It was improvise/adapt/overcome, across the spectrum. However, as the nasty little bug decided to dig in its heals and delay business-back-to-normalcy, companies and business owners have had time to see the benefits of having flexible workplace policies, even embrace it, increasingly using flexible work options as a way to entice new employees. In one Linkedin survey, it was found that 82% of employees want to work from home at least once a week. Also, 57% want to work from home at least three days a week. Read more

May 11, 2020

We are officially back out in the world, and, yes, of course, playing by all of the rules, doing what we can to avoid that nasty little buzz-kill of a virus. It seems this little bugger doesn’t much care much about architectural style, scenic building sites or geography. Rustic Colorado mountain log home, Lake Michigan Cottage-style home or contemporary Burt lake getaway, this thing is lurking, but it’s time to start planting those homes that were born during that lengthy timeout from our lives’ routines this thing caused. Improvise, adapt and overcome has always been a guiding creed in how we approach matters and adapting to today’s “new normal” is no exception. Read more

March 19, 2020

“Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist.
Everything we do after a pandemic will seem inadequate.”

— Michael O. Leavitt, former Secretary of US Department of Health & Human Services.

We would add “during,” as well. There is a lot to worry about in this seemingly scary time. This thing is here and we all have to do what we can to slow it down and whatever is necessary to help manage it. But, we can also never lose sight of what is real in this life.

LIVE LOVE LAUGH

Town + Country Cedar Homes and our collaborative partners are all still working, but all at a distance. Everyone is working remotely from homes, home offices, home workshops, etc. and, most important, no illnesses to report, knock on Cedar.

Stay happy. Stay healthy. Stay safe….

March 9, 2020

Or why SPRING AHEAD can be a wonderful thing

Trying to keep the early-bird title of the Town + Country Cedar Homes crew had me battling the snooze button on this first Monday after that dreaded spring-forward calendar day – Daylight Savings. Daylight Saving Time is the practice of advancing clocks during warmer months so that darkness falls later each day according to the clock; the typical kick-off of this much maligned practice is to set clocks forward by one hour in the spring, “spring forward”, and set clocks back by one hour in autumn, “fall back”, to return to standard time. In other words, there is one 23-hour day in late winter or early spring and one 25-hour day in the autumn.

People tend to have more heart attacks on the Monday following the spring forward switch to daylight saving time, according to a study published in 2009 in the Journal of Applied Psychology showed that during the week following, mine workers got 40 minutes less sleep and had 5.7% more workplace injuries than they did during any other days of the year, and since humans set the routines for their four-legged loved ones, dogs and cats living indoors and even cows are disrupted when you bring their food an hour late/early or come to milk them later/earlier than usual.

This popular internet meme says it all. WHO THINKS THIS IS A GOOD IDEA? Read more

November 21, 2019

Once again, the outdoor chores of this log home lifestyle have got us thinking. Thinking about those specific chores, about options available, about the abstract, about cost/benefit analysis. This time it’s cost /benefit analysis of firewood. We have already discussed, and continue to discuss, at length, the trade-offs of gas v log fireplaces; that is left for a different time and place. For this discussion, we are sticking with the sheer antiquity of burning wood for heat and ambiance and going old-school fireplace, the type a log homes and ski lodge are designed around – a big, focal, Volkswagon-sized boulder, wood burning fireplace, the kind that swallows hardwoods like cocktail wieners. Read more