It’s late already, 4:45 pm, I had scheduled time at 10 am today to write this newsletter and already the day has flown by. With a small delivery in Ventura, some errands, and a short detour to the boat for another coat of varnish, the day is slipping away. And in the middle of all of that, I’ve signed Tom and I up for another boating class as we prepare for some longer voyages. After being tethered to LOL for 11 years, it’s hard to think about anything else and being anywhere else at this time. We are just now hitting our stride, (knock on wood) with everything going pretty smooth as we wind down a bit for fall. Though, I have to admit that last year we did not see that dip in sales during the winter as we had in the past. I am not sure why yet, except that we have built a fantastic customer base that is very diverse and has increased our reach through customer referrals and our great distribution team. The fiscal year-end lull is real for me. Definitely the frenzied pace of summer is starting to let up and since I live for the adrenaline, it’s a difficult time. I start to question everything, starting the 12th year is about becoming debt free as a company, looking more at what we can do to support a larger mission, and still living the adventurous life that I want for myself away from l
lemonade land. While I say that mostly I push words around on the computer screen as my job, it really is the time away from my computer during our adventures in Baja, sailing, driving in my lemonade cube with the music blaring like a rock concert, or out on the trail that I find my inspiration for what we need to do next.
One thing I know is that I was energized last weekend with Pier Under the Stars an event we have been participating in for years serving our lemonades as one of the vendors donating our product to help fundraise for the restoration of the pier. Its the first event since we were all locked down and it was especially great this time to see all of our customers come back and say hi :) It never gets old when people ask to take a photo with me or ask about our story, surprised at how we started – I love that people share our lemonades on their most important life occasions – I have no words for how this makes me feel – We continue to source the highest quality organic ingredients for the recipe we have been making for over 25 years –
And with that, I am finishing up on the order of the hundreds of pounds of fresh frozen lemon juice, organic cane sugar, bottles, caps, trays, labels,
and a few other items as we prepare to bottle again in a couple of weeks. Not soon enough as Wild Strawberry is out again!
Our mission is simply to make the most delicious lemonades for you to sip and share –
Thank you,
Lori Volk, Chief Believer Lori’s Original Lemonade
since 2011
