Love is a many spendored thing!
By April on Feb 12 Filed In Uncategorized 26 Comments
Today is February 12th, my 7th wedding anniversary and during this time of year, it’s hard not to think of love since the 12th is so close to Valentines Day.
I use this time to reflect over the last year’s trials and tribulations that come with sharing your life with another person. I wouldn’t change anything that has happened, not the good or the bad. Why? Because I’ve learned so much about myself. Sharing your life with another person often forces us to act beyond our comfort zones. Why is this? To help make the OTHER person more comfortable. We do this because we love them and they help to make us better people. It’s all worth while in the end. To love and be loved is an awesome feeling.
Recently, I received a very frantic email from one of our Fan’s asking me to help him find a particular Grannyism on a yellow bottle cap. I know you’re asking, “April, what does any of this have to do with LOVE?” Oh, I’m getting there, the story gets sweeter and sweeter, much like our organic cane sugar sweetened teas!
I wrote our Fan back and let him know that we’d search through our boxes of lids to find the particular Grannyism in question but that I wasn’t sure how successful we’d be. I asked him to write me back and tell me why he needed this particular cap so badly and this is what he wrote back and said.
Per Paul Nguyen: Well the story is I was helping a girl with her Calculus homework.
She had gotten a free Sweet Leaf coupon thing and we went to go get one.
We tried the Cherry Limeade, which is not too bad actually.
She didn’t know I kept the bottle cap.
We started meeting up more and more, and talking.
One day she was having a difficult day and I gave her the cap “keep your chin up”.
Like a week later she brought me cookies at work and she had given it back to me.
There’s a picture enclosed. 
Imagine that having someone fall for you over a bottle cap.
Basically it’s a precious memory and I was really sad when I lost it.
What had happened was I attached to my backpack so I’d have it with me all the time and it fell off somewhere. =[
After reading this note, I forwarded it around the office, and every woman that works here got out of their chairs and began sifting through boxes of lids looking for the one special bottle cap. After less than 5 minutes, Macy hollers "I found it!" and there it was. The yellow lid that said, "keep your chin up". I sent a note back to Paul letting him know all was right in the world again and he was ecstatic. I requested permission to make his story a blog entry, got some cool t-shirts together and some other goodies and sent them off to Paul. After Christmas break, Paul wrote me back with pictures of he and his girl, Audrey Yang modeling their shirts and their love for one another. Who doesn't love happy endings, no matter what time of year?
Happy Valentines Day to all of you from us. Go share some of yourself with someone else; not just February 14th, but every day.
Such a sweet and fitting story
Too cool…and yes, what we women won’t do to help some poor guy honor his true love!
P.S. April, what is an SEO/SEM wonk? A friend’s son wants to know!
This is fantastic! Your staff is incredible for making this couple’s day!
By the way, I wish there was more Sweet Leaf Tea where I am…in Brownsville, TX! Thanks for the great product! I definitely indulge when I get back to Sweet Leaf country!
that is too sweet , it made me cry! I love sweet leaf, and so do my kids. Skylar will actually fight me for the lids,lol! Thanks for posting such a wonderful story.
Who wouldn’t fall in love over some SLT Cherry Limeade? mmm….
Great story…Sweet Leaf brings people together!
Wow. What a great story! The pictures and the rad t-shirts make it though!
So cute! Love what you guys are doing with your products, your company and this blog!
Awwww – even the cynical grouch in me loved this story!
What a great story! And you are right about loving and being loved it is an “awesome feeling” Congrats on your wedding anniversary.
How cool is that? Happy Anniversary to you! Keep drinking the Sweet Leaf Tea!
I really appreciate and agree completely concerning what you said about not changing anything, not the Good or the Bad. I am at a place in my life with someone where I also learned that without the bad there are countless things I would not have learned about myself.
I wanted also to share my Sweet Leaf story. My first taste of Sweet Leaf Tea was two or three years (heck maybe even four now the way time flies) ago in Tyler, TX. I had volunteered to be a helping hand at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Walk in Tyler. It was very fun and very awesome to see the survivors and all the people out supporting the cause. They had lots of free food and there were some bottles of tea (Sweet Leaf of course). That was my first bottle. I remembered it being very good and I was excited it was organic.
The sad part of the story was I did not see or taste another Sweet Leaf Tea for several years until I moved to Portland, OR. Many negative things have happened to me here in Portland and I became homesick for my sweet Dallas, TX. One day something caught my eye as I was walking by the cooled drinks in the store and I saw the Sweet Leaf bottle. I instantly remembered where I had first had it and memories of home ran through my head. Of course I bought it…and continued to buy it haha I am very much a Sweet Leaf patron now. Although nothing else had changed around me, that one bottle of Sweet Leaf had made my day.
Now I am still in Portland, OR, but that may change soon. Love is a long and difficult story. Where would the excitement be if it were easy to explain I suppose.
Wish me luck
~ryan
Ryan-your comment brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for connecting so honestly with my post! I do wish you MORE than the best of luck from now forward. Make the best of where you are my friend-TX will always be here for you. And Sweet Leaf Tea too! : )
Sincerely,
April
great story, love your company more than I should…!
great story, love your company and product more than i should!
Congrats on your anniversary, April and kudos to helping the happy couple with the bottle cap. I save bottle caps and have a couple of them. This makes me think of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street when Bert sold his bottle cap collection to buy a soap dish for Ernie’s rubber duckie and Ernie sold his rubber duckie to get Bert a box for his beloved bottle caps, Mr Hooper saved the day!
Much respect to Sweet Leaf. They were just appointed to the lemonade pantheon on my blog Rocksoft:
http://rocksoft.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/the-best-around/
Keep up the good work guys.
I love Sweet Leaf lids, there are so many potential art projects and gift ideas. Very sweet story!
thats great,
congrats! it’s really sweet (;
What an adorable story! Cherry Limeade was already my favorite variety of SweetLeaf and this just makes me love it even more. <3
Ah, the serendipity of love. A lesson here for men: women like men to acknowledge that they’re special.
And such a cute couple! A perfect Valentine’s story.
Also, I want to thank Sweet Leaf Tea for donating delicious mango tea to the Twestival Houston. A wonderful gesture and I appreciated it greatly!
This is such a sweet story. I love bottle caps with messages and I love companies who care even more!
Your comment made me LOL, Carol. Thanks for the congrats, we had a wonderful dinner night out last night at a fab place here in Austin called Wink. Wondeful!
I totally remember that Bert and Ernie!
Aww…. Love is such a beautiful thing and shouldn’t be taken for granted. My parent’s 40th Wedding Anniversari is comming up in two days!
Happy Belated Seventh Anniversari!
This is what I could find for you. I am not a computer whiz or an IT person, so I googled it.
What does SEM stand for?
SEM stands for “Search Engine Marketing”.
What does SEO stand for?
SEM stands for “Search Engine Optimization”.
What a great <3 day story right here in Austin! Thanks for sharing April, and thanks for making things happen for this guy Sweet Leaf!