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A day in the life of lemonade…

The sky is filled with brilliant colors this morning casting pink shadows over the harbor where my husband and I now live on our sailboat.  Four years ago I took my life shook it up and today, have nothing that resembles my former life or self.  Selling our family home of 25 years to cut down our expenses and launching into the beverage world with a little lemonade recipe that I used to make in my kitchen for my kids has now put me into a new life/world of discovery, possibilities and the “anything is absolutely possible” place where nothing is impossible.

But what does it mean? Why was I given this opportunity? After listening to Zhena, Founder of Gypsy Teas speak last night at a new Women’s giving group I realized again I was asking these questions of myself and my company.  As she spoke of pioneering Fair Trade for her tea company in the early days I started to think about the growers again of our lemons, sugar, lavender, ginger and lemongrass – who are they? While we only purchase organic ingredients, we haven’t gone fair trade yet. How are we to help? Is it to help our industry to bring more awareness to the customers how important organic and a clean label is? As a mom, I see young children come up to our “lemonade stand” in the stores as they sip our lemonade and I know that providing them a pure product free of chemicals, preservatives and additives is the most important thing we can do.  So, with that, I set off this morning back to the office with one of my quests to find out more about the people behind our lemonade, the farmers, the bottlers, the sustainable glass manufacturers to bring you closer to the lives of the people who are really working to change the industry – we are just the vehicle for helping them…

Lori, Chief Believer/Founder

Lori’s Original Lemonade

crisp refreshing lemonade

10649955_693894420692106_1009344223441186043_nMy lemonade took me to a wonderful woman who is 89 years old this week. A special delivery as the local store she shops at didn’t have full cases for her to buy. She buys our lemonade for her worker who drinks exactly 1 lavender lemonade every day – she said he only drinks natural drinks, not coke and she was running low and wanted to keep the refrigerator stocked up for him.
It was late in the afternoon and I agreed to meet her wherever she would like – she had some shopping to do and said she could meet me at her commercial office. While I wasn’t exactly comfortable meeting someone as it grew dark by myself, I trusted that it would be okay.

What happened next was one of the most amazing experiences I have had yet. This woman and her husband were collectors and as she took me through her large office of collections of antiques and things so lovingly acquired from decades of collecting I listened to her stories about the history of special things she selected to talk about. I loved her story about the picture of her skydiving when she turned 70! She described the story in such wonderful detail she almost had me convinced it was a bucket list item for me.

At almost an hour later we ended in her office (she’s 89 and has a fully functioning office!) She starts inserting the paper into an antique player piano, I look at the music and faintly printed are the words on the paper that will soon be spinning through the roller and can’t believe my eyes. The music “Show me the way to go home” is starting to sound as the keys are playing by itself… I sing to the music as I remember the last time I heard that song played was my grandma who played it on the ukulele for me every time I would visit – eventually I learned to play and sing it myself as soon as I was old enough. Tears came to my eyes as the music finished and I looked at this wonderful woman who had hugged me the moment I met her.

As I sit writing this I remember the moment I created LOL and as I was feeling so alone as my 25 year job of raising our 3 children was over as the youngest headed off to college and losing my part time job with the local school district I didn’t know what I was going to do. I remember I just kept thinking connecting to people was what I really wanted – and what better way to do that but through the lemonade I had made for our kids, family and friends?
I turned to my new friend and asked her what her secret is? Without skipping a beat she said, “I just keep busy, I have things I need to do and oh I have so many interests!” She is now trying to decide what she will do to celebrate her 90th birthday.

And now, it was dark, my husband no doubt worried where I was but I stood in the parking lot not sure about how I got to this place to meet this amazing woman. She gave me another hug and was so thankful that I had brought our lavender lemonade to her – I looked back and told her any time I would be happy to hand deliver our lemonades to her and thanked her for being such a wonderful example of how we can all achieve happiness and fulfillment no matter our age… I love that I said yes to starting Lori’s Original Lemonade and wonder how many wonderful people I will get to meet along the way-

Lori, Chief Believer