Picture Me in St. Lucia...

Discovering travel has been a fun thing for me. I like using my passport and wish I could do it more often. However, my bank account has other ideas.

"Oh, you want to travel? Where would you like to go? Your options are work and home."

When my Canadian said she was getting married. In St. Lucia. I was excited. I'd never been there, and it would be a nice sunny vacay during the cold February that was likely coming in Kansas. I started planning and saving, and all the things. And then I abruptly stopped.

Why do you have to have a plan? I asked myself. Stop being typical. Do things that push you.

So I did.

The first thing I did was take a photo class. I had planned to do this activity solo, but everybody told me I'd be kidnapped or sex trafficked. So, I persuaded my travel buddy (the Partner In Crime) to go along with me and I don't think this was exactly his idea of a good time - but he was a great sport about it and I appreciated the "safety in numbers" aspect.

It was a great experience. Kirk picked us up at the hotel and we saw the island. Almost the entire island. Kirk was not only fun but hands-on. He is the master of inclusion and made everybody feel like a pro before the day was over. Not only was Kirk a great leader, the people we met on the tour were great. We met a St. Lucian lawyer and a couple from Minnesota.

Five Things We Learned on Youth Tour

As the 2018 Youth Tour wrapped I reflected on the experience I had the year before as a chaperone for the Kansas delegation. It was something I'll remember for a long time to come and honestly can say I can't wait to see what some of these kiddos go on to do. 

The below post was something I wrote for work publications, so I thought I would share it here, as well. Brent is a co-worker at FreeState as the Director of IT - and one fun dude! 

Five Things We Learned on Youth Tour

By Sarah Farlee and Brent Edgecomb
2017 Youth Tour Chaperones

When we started our adventure in Topeka with these 40 delegates, we will have to admit there were a few fleeting moments of "what did we do?"

FreeState Youth Tour participants. What a week! 
Edgecomb, Williams, Staatz, Farlee

We had both been to Washington, D.C. before, but not with precious cargo like this in tow. We can honestly say that this was a trip that taught us a lot about ourselves, too. Here are the five things we learned while chaperoning. 

1. Sleep is overrated Being a chaperone means running on fumes at times, but so do the delegates. It was far more fun to chat away at bed checks than it was just to hit the hay at the end of the night. That's when you got to learn about their personalities and answer questions about life and truly get to know these young leaders. Besides, the bus rides were ideal for catching a cat nap.

Hiatus...

I went on a hiatus. So, what's happened in the two years since I posted last?

I went on a vacation. To an island. For a wedding (not mine). I bought a house.

That's about it.

I'll be returning to writing soon. Now that I have this house I'll likely have things to write about.

Happy reading!

Looking at 2016...

The first full week of the New Year has past and the rest of the year is out the windshield. It's time to decide what kind of goals to set and how to go about achieving them to become a better human.

Resolutions are a waste of time. Nobody follows those things. If everybody I knew followed them all my friends would be thin, live in castles and have the kind of relationships most people dream about. However, nobody keeps resolutions. I myself am just as guilty.

This year I've decided to focus on principles instead of actual goals.

Where did this come from? Good question. A week ago I could have cared less about goals and probably would have said, "yeah, those. I'll get to that in a week, or two."

I received an email from a friend that had me thinking. She said, "maybe if things were more in our language we could adult better."

Our language is similar. Once we achieve a goal we often relish for a moment in the accomplishment, and then can be caught emailing each other saying, "well now what the eff do we do?" We are guilty of conquering a peak, and then plateauing through the rest of the days. So, how do we avoid the plateau?

What a year...

As 2015 closes I think of what a year it's been.

It's been full of change. It's been full of adventure. It's been full of life.

Last January when I was staring down another year of marginal happiness I set a goal for myself. I was going to do better. I was becoming a miserable human and I needed a change. I knew it. My family knew it. My friends knew it. What I didn't know is if I would have the ability, or courage to make the changes I knew I desperately needed.

I am a firm believer that some things happen for reasons out of your control. I think opportunities come when you are ready to embrace them, and when the time is right. I think people are put in your life to make you better, to teach you lessons you can't learn on your own, and to help navigate life. Because life, is harder than it looks. There are no mulligans. Sometimes you have to do scary shit and just leap, and hope somebody is there to catch you.

This past year was pretty big. I took my first trip to a foreign country and I redirected my career path. I put these together because they happened at about the same time, and it all kind of fell together. I had an epiphany on the top of a South African mountain as I was staring out into the vast ocean, standing next to a dear friend. I got some of the best advice. It was simple. It was profound. It put things into perspective.

Happy Thanksgiving...

As we prepare for the holiday of gluttony and putting the fun in dysfunctional families let's take a moment to have a few chuckles.

Here are some of my favorite holiday funnies.

Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy the family, friends, and food. And, if you're like my family enjoy the laughs and constant ribbing of one another. 

If you're one of the crazy folks that partakes in Black Friday - have a safe trip to Wal-Mart. Perhaps pack a knife, or a can of mace. Those deals wait for nobody. 

Dang it! Do better marketing people...

There isn't much I get in a tizzy about anymore. Except fear-based marketing. 

That sh*t gets my blood boiling. (Just ask me about that chain establishment that shall not be named).

I'm a marketing professional that takes offense to using fear-based marketing to sell a product. It's wrong, and it gives the impression that marketers care about nothing other than pushing a product. That  just isn't the case. What happened to educating, promoting, and engaging customers? That's how you market a product! It is ultimately how you sustain sales, as well. Not to mention it's ethical. 

Since when did marketing people become the poster children for trust issues in the consumer marketplace? 

This week I got fired up when Subway joined the ranks of places I won't be supporting anymore. So, why do I care what they do? Why should anybody care? It's a sandwich, settle down. 

Here's a newsflash. All ingredients are safe. What happened to doing a little research? If they'd done some research they'd know that it is illegal to market food animals with antibiotic residue present. That means that no meat has antibiotics present. None. Zero. Zilch. Nadda. I guarantee that lettuce you're eating because it's "healthier" is far more dangerous than that slab of processed meat. 

You should also be paying attention if your livelihood revolves around agriculture because Subway just took a big shot at farmers and ranchers across the country. This type of marketing can also spark regulations that hinder farming operations, and in the long run can force that five-dollar footlong into a 10-dollar six inch. Eggs are a great example of how regulations have increased the input costs of raising chickens, and that cost has to be passed on to the consumer. That potentially could happen across the board, especially if consumer demands dictate operating regulations. This type of marketing (the type with no research or knowledge) moves the needle. 

The Subway marketing campaign scares the average consumer into buying their sandwiches and that makes me mad. 

What they've done is target consumers with gimmicks. Average Joe consumer may not be aware of this law, but they're thinking: "I'm eating at Subway because their sandwiches are safe and they don't have antibiotic laced meat." 

Sounds ridiculous, but that's where we are in the world. We've managed to pull consumers in so many different directions with so much information they don't even know what or who to believe anymore. That's the sad part. 

I encourage my agriculture industry friends to have a conversation with someone about food. They don't know what they don't know. It's part of our job to educate. We have to promote ourselves, and we have to engage our customers. We have to do our part to trim up the information gap. 

The reality is, no matter where you chose to eat, it is safe. Your food is safe. The U.S. has the safest, most abundant food supply on the planet. 

Instead of scaring people into buying your sandwich, how about educating them into buying it by assuring them the ingredients you're putting on the bread are safe, reliable, abundant, and healthy. And, grown by farmers and ranchers who care about the products they raise. Because, you know, that's the actual truth. 

Dang it, marketing people. Do better. 

In the meantime, head over to Jimmy John's. They have better sandwiches anyway. 

Puffs and stuff...

Living in Lawrence has given me an opportunity to be adventurous. I'm not typically one to step outside my comfort zone, but new friends in a new place have pushed me to do that. So far, so good. I think everybody needs that once in a while.

I know I did.

I've had a lot of new adventures lately, but the newest was taking a cooking class at The Merc. It's a local grocery cooperative that has a gigantic variety of all-natural, organic, and all that stuff I usually scoff at. However, it does provide a great place for those to shop who choose (or are forced) to eat differently than I do. At The Merc there is an emphasis on local. On their website you can get information from farm to fork. This is something that has become more important to consumers, and places like The Merc helped pioneer this concept.

From a marketing perspective it was interesting. I roamed the aisles and found things I've never heard of before. It expanded my horizons, and I'll be honest here, it proved to me that people will pay big bucks for words. But, I digress. At The Merc you can grind your own peanut (or any nut) butter, and you can get a wide variety of allergy free foods, vegetarian options, and yes, grass fed butter. That kind of made me scratch my head a little, but where there is a market - there's a product.

To each his own.