Leigh’s September 2022 newsletter

End of summer greetings to our friends of the Featherstones Comfort Pad!

Are you sad for summer ending? Or are you celebrating the coming of fall? If the latter, here is a countdown clock so you can time your moment in (actually out of) the sun, here on the East Coast: Fall – Countdown to Sep 22, 2022 9:03 pm in Boston (timeanddate.com)

The autumnal equinox arrives just past 9 p.m. Thursday, the nights start getting longer than the days, and some of us start squirreling away nuts to get us through the winter. But fear not, spring will return March 20, only six mere months away! (How cheery was that!)

Summer lovers, we got a couple great hours in at the beach Sunday – 80 and breezy and the water just warm enough to plunge. Four young families set up next to us, and it was such fun to listen to those kids laughing and laughing as they ran around in the sand playing. And their parents were having fun too. As we were packing up to go, we went over to tell them how sweet it was to listen to their children. We had a nice conversation before heading home to our quiet nest, where we perched on our deck for another outdoor hour of summer.

Launch party

Year one is done!

The timeline we’re celebrating this month has nothing to do with summer or fall. September marks our one-year anniversary of introducing the Featherstones Comfort Pad to the world – a year already! September 10, 2021, we kicked off our new enterprise with a fun party for local supporters and testers. This photo is me talking about it all with our guests.

We quickly found that the learning curve in the digital consumer marketplace was challenging, especially introducing a brand-new product into the world. So much of digital marketing has to do with how one markets relative to the competition and the already existing demand and online searches for those products – but we don’t have competition; there is nothing else out there like the Comfort Pad. We are, however, making progress, and more is clearly on our horizon!

We know from the accolades of happy owners how effective the Comfort Pad is. And we know from Boston Children’s Hospital how much they love its features, which are so effective in their MRI machines. We’re ramping up a program to seek more of that market, as well as developing a plan to get into the practitioner market. One thing we’ve learned is the Comfort Pad has to be felt to be fully appreciated. It’s difficult to adequately describe the incredible comfort it offers, but when people use it on massage tables, behind their back in the car or on the couch, as a yoga prop, in bed, on a chaise, lying in MRI tubes, and so many other applications – the “ah” moment is more like and an “OMG!” moment.

We celebrated our anniversary by taking a day off and visiting beautiful Block Island, off the Rhode Island coast. Here I am holding up the Southeastern Lighthouse, which guards the majestic Mohegan Bluffs on the ocean-facing side of the island.

Leigh holds up Block Island’s Southeastern Lighthouse

When will your fall foliage peak?

Speaking of fall, now the big question is, when will we see peak foliage? We live in southern New England, not as renown as northern NE for foliage season, so we have to pay more attention to catch peak color. In our area we like to get leaf peeping in as our local cranberry bogs are being harvested (the cranberry is Massachusetts’ first fruit and its farming is quite prominent in our area). Water-picked berries float bright and burnt red on top of sky-lit blue water – that and colorful hardwoods in the background? Beautiful! 🍁

We came across a cool foliage predictor at https://smokymountains.com/fall-foliage-map. It’s telling us that our peak foliage color will occur the first week or so of October, which is quite earlier than usual, likely due to our long summer drought. The site also explains how leaves change color – a fun review for those of us who don’t recall our junior high science class lesson. There is more fun info at this site, along with seasonal recipes, so check out the foliage prediction for your area and take a science class refresher!

Thanks to one of our favorite news feeds, DayBreak Nantucket, for passing along the tip. Visit https://www.daybreaknantucket.com to subscribe – it’s free and filled with insights of Nantucket, the charming island where I lived for 10 years.

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A honey of a recipe!

September is National Honey Month, which we mention because a friend raises honeybees and gave us a jar of the best local honey we ever tasted! Scott especially loves it on almond-buttered multigrain toast, and I sweeten my ginger tea with it. Okay, so honey is sugar, we get it. But it’s happy sugar, with good antioxidants. One tablespoon has about 60 calories. Worth a little once in a while! And if you need a sweetener….

There are variations of this recipe, which we fondly call “The Potion.” It’s used to cleanse, detoxify, as a morning reset, an energy boost, and possibly, supposedly, maybe even help with weight loss (some authorities say yes, somewhat; others say school’s out on that). Some suggest taking this morning and evening, others once a day. We take ours in the morning after coffee. I have to say, it gives us some get up and go! Here’s our version.

Ingredients
About 12 ounces warm water
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (we use Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp turmeric powder (some use just ¼, up to you and your taste, but turmeric is great for you)
1 heaping tsp honey
1 tsp cinnamon
Some people like to add a dash of cayenne pepper to increase the metabolism
Stir the honey into the warm water to get it good and mixed in. Mix in the other ingredients, but save the turmeric for last, as it doesn’t dissolve well and needs a good final stir. The drink it right down! Ah!!!
You can easily research variations on the theme and use your own concoction of spices. But the honey is the tongue saver as you guzzle it down – really takes the edge off!

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As ever…

If you enjoy your Comfort Pad, please be sure to leave a rating and brief review on your Comfort Pad’s page at https://featherstonesinc.com/comfort-pad. They help immensely with our marketing, so, sincerely, thank you!!!
It’s also helpful for viewers to share our social media posts so like-minded people in their world see them. As we say in our posts: “Featherstones – pass the word!”
And please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you think might enjoy it – if they like it, they can sign up at the website. We’ll never sell or give anyone’s info away!

Thank you so very much for your support! Our first year anniversary snuck right up on us, and here we go into year two! We could not do this without you. We are so very grateful for your purchases and referrals, and even more so for your kind words and encouragement.

From our hearts to yours!

With love, Leigh

PS, You can follow the Featherstones Comfort Pad social media pages: @featherstones.comfort.pad on Instagram and @FeatherstonesComfortPad on Facebook. We post five days a week, a mix of business, info and fun. 😊

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