Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The Queens of SQueeze

Lily and her buddy Abby have a plan. They want to be rich. Don't most kids? They have a plan in place. They want to sell lemonade and cookies and make cash moola. I'm all for the entrepreneurial spirit. But I want it to be all them, not Mom working and kids raking in the dough.

When the girls told me their plan, I was amused. When they told me how they were going to accomplish said plan, I was supportive. Pick lemons, freeze the juice, then later when it's warmer, they'll make juice and cookies and sell them from our corner. 

So, one Saturday, these two entrepreneurial girls loaded our wagon with two huge totes, walked to our neighbor's vacant house, loaded both totes and the bottom of the wagon with lemons, then walked home.

Three days later, after school, these two young ladies borrowed a neighbor's juicer, set up assembly lines on my patio table (cutting station, juicing station, garbage station, pouring station, bagging station) and proceeded to juice lemons.

Exactly how many lemons did the juice?  I don't know.  But I can give you a few figures.  They juiced lemons for over two and a half hours!  Seriously!

A batch of fresh lemonade requires two cups of juice, so they used quart-size freezer bags and filled each with two cups of their treasure. 
How many bags?  Forty Bags. FORTY BAGS!

How much did I help?  I helped them set up their assembly lines, and that's it.  Really. Oh, and I did make room in the freezer for the juice.  That's it.

They're counting their money already.

I know most of you across this country of ours are busy digging out of the century's worst storm (and it's only 2011--who knows what this century still has in store). 

I know it's freezing nose hairs where you are.

If it's any consolation to you, Ben just came in the house and said, "It is so ridiculously cold!" It's supposed to be around 27* tonight. It's never that cold here. All our flowers, vegetables, and tender shrubs (including my precious gardenias) are safely tucked in under blankets tonight. 

Watch out. I'm sure all the ficus trees will be gone by morning, and I bet all the citrus farmers have their fans blowing tonight.

I know. Feel bad for me.


I felt bad posting the picture of Lily in her tumbling clothes yesterday. I also feel bad posting this today--squeezing fresh-picked lemons outside. Sorry.

Linking up to Q with Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.  Jenny won't care.  She lives around the corner and probably juiced her own grapefruit juice this morning.
Jenny Matlock
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39 comments:

  1. I will not be a hater.
    It's my New Years resolution and all....
    but


    you are trying my patience and resolution.

    Squeezing lemon juice? Are you kidding me?

    They are very enterprising though!

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  2. I love the juicing pictures & totally remember thinking I'd get rich off lemonade at their age! Oh how I wish I could be that age again sometimes and have not a worry in the world!

    P.S. The high here today was right around 80 I think...I'm actually a little bummed it's getting so warm but that is Florida winter's for you!

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  3. I don't mind either. I don't like hot weather!

    Good for Lily! What a hardworking girl. :)

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  4. Aren't you proud of how hard they worked? I hope they make lots of money. If I were there I'd buy some from them - when they do it I'll tell Katie to swing by! I don't know about you, but I LOVE that it doesn't snow here.

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  5. Those girls are gonna be sooooo rich one day!!!

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  6. Had to laugh at the last line about Jenny living around the corner and juicing her grapefruit! ha ha

    I love the entrepreneurial spirit that kids have!! And to get all those lemons free...just two words - Cha-Ching!!!! (or is that one word? It's late I don't know).

    Anyhoo - Good job to the girls and I hope they make it rich!!

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  7. I love that photo of the happy girls - that joy and anticipation...now if we could bottle that we'd be rich!

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  8. Tell them to set up right outside Hale after school on Ice Cream day.

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  9. Off the subject - Tomorrow (Feb 3rd) is Emma's 5th "birthday."

    With her "birthday" I am reminded of earthly angels that blessed my life during that time (like you). I am SO grateful that I have been able to reconnect with you! May the Lord bless you for your kindness and loving care in those days following. I will forever be in your debt! :o)

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  10. Forty bags! 40 bags! Forty! Wow! I am very impressed with the girls for all the work they did! Forty bags! I'm totally cheering for them and hoping that they will make a big profit this summer!

    Btw, we had a fairly nice weather out here in Tokyo today. A whopping 42 degrees compared to the 33 degree we've been having the past few weeks.

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  11. could you send me some of those lemons? :) I'm so impressed..40 bags! Guess what...it's snowing here again. Really I don't mind it but maybe just a day of sun and warm would be nice.

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  12. I'll watch for these two on the food network someday:)

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  13. There was a whole lot of squeezing going on.

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  14. I've done that before! Wow, what a job, but lemonade all summer is soooooo nice :) I'd think Tucker's idea to be a good, one, except schools who sell stuff after hours don't like the competition. Ours called and had us shut down, but not before we earned enough for Disney tickets! Good luck to them!

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  15. hmmmm...wonder where all those lemons came from ;) Go girls, go! Hope they follow through & make lots of money off their plans.

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  16. Wonderful lemon squeezing story. Queens, indeed.

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  17. I love the lemon pictures, makes my day! Good for those girls!

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  18. Lovely post! Love freshly squeezed juice!

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  19. What character, really. She's a hard worker already.

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  20. oh yeah, squeezing lemons outdoors in a short sleeved shirt is definitely a world apart! Cute project, can't wait to hear the follow up!!

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  21. I don't think you are really feeling that bad. My visits here during the winter are a little surreal. We do live in different worlds. Your's full of lemonade, mine full of hot chocolate.
    Dana

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  22. Wow! Now that's impressive! I wish we had a lemon tree. When my poor kids make a lemonade stand, they have to use store bought! LOL. I would definitely stop at Lily's stand. :)

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  23. Good for them, that is some hard work.

    Of course you'll have to keep us posted about their sales efforts later in the year.

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  24. Yep...the lemonade sounds delish even in this freezing weather!!Good luck to those enterprizing kids!!!

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  25. snow. in houston. in nearly thirty years, it's snowed here three times. about to be four. if i wanted snow, i'd live in frigging colorado. that's all i gotta say about that.

    i'm a little impressed that those girls stuck it out long enough to make forty bags of juice. kudos.

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  26. Ca-Ching!

    I hear the cash coming in, hand over fist. You must do a follow up post and let us know how they did!

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  27. That was awesome! Great little industrious girls! We are in the 20's here and thinking it is amazingly cold. It is all relative, right?

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  28. Ah...I remember the days... Except me and my friend didn't realize the importance of adding lots of water. We, in our genius, just kept dumping more and more sugar in until it stopped dissolving altogether. And then we just had a sour, gritty, sticky mess. But we still drank it!

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  29. I can scarcely believe it! FORTY bags. You had to make a pretty good space in your freezer for that. I love their spirit and I hope they make a lot of money. If I were there I would certainly buy some (and I'm not even a lemonade fan)

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  30. the pics are stunning! What a refreshing post!! love it! hugs, cathy

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  31. okee. scratch that about the snow. if it did, it wasn't on the ground when i woke, so it doesn't count. :]

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  32. I love that they worked so hard- not something many kids are willing to do at that age.

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  33. I'm impressed!

    You do such an amazing job teaching your kids the value of hardwork and stick-to-itness (Hmmm.... don't think that's a word!)

    This was quite a fun stop on our little journey through Alphabe-Thursday's letter "Q".

    Thank you for linking.

    A+

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  34. Oh, would you please just bring some of that fresh squeezed lemon juice OR some of those lovely lemons and deposit them at my home the next time you come to cold and barren Utah?

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  35. Good for them! If they have any job openings and are hiring, let me know!

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  36. we sold lemonade on the golf course we lived on in elem school. i'm sure we never made any money. it's all part of the fun of being an entrepreneur. did i spell that right? blogger should have auto spell in these comment boxes.

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