You don't make friends with the iron

In our house we have a lot of our own tea towels. I like to think of it as a perk of the job that I get to keep the dud prints that have accumulated over the last the 4 years. Although not technically free, they feel free. The tea towels are a 100% linen via Eastern Europe that we source from a supplier in NSW. When they arrive they have a slight stiffness from starch and don't feel like they would be very good at drying the dishes. In fact they are rather terrible at drying things until the first wash when they shrink a little and become a lot more like a tea towel and the linen is lovely fabric to use in the kitchen as its hard wearing and absorbent.

A few months back the cupboard we keep our tea towels in a hot mess with tea towels shoved in and knotted up so much that they all fell out on top of you when you tried to remove just one. I decided to solve this problem by ironing my tea towels into a neat pile and putting them away. A lofty plan I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up, not because I didn't revel in the fact that it was the easiest ironing job in the world or from the satisfaction I got removing all the creases and turning a crinkly, wobbly pile of mess into something neat and ordered. No, it was lofty because retrieving the iron and board out of the cupboard was something I would avoid for no reason other than a good old fashion case of the can't be bothereds. The other night when I opened the tea towels cupboard and again saw the mess they were in I quickly got the iron out before my lazy brain (yes, there is a right side, a left side and a lazy side) had a chance to realise what was going on.

Now look at them sitting there all neat, with the sun shining in like some kind of aaaaahhhhh laaaaaa divine moment in a film. That is the universe telling me I need to iron them more often.

You can buy our tea towels on Etsy and if you, like me, are a lazy brained person then just stretch them our before hanging them up on the line so they dry nice and flat.

Op Shops

The best op-shop finds include but are not limited to the following:

• Shoes that you like, that fit and they are not stale inside.
• Tupperware with lid that doesn't smell like 4 month old cottage cheese.
• Exactly what you want to wear to a fancy dress party, all for under $20
• decent winter coat with pockets that don't have holes in them. Bonus points there is a $2 note in said pocket.
• That birthday cake book. The old edition.
• Ed Hardy tops that you can wear ironically while walking down Chapel Street.
• A jigsaw puzzle that has cats on it and all the pieces.
• A wedding dress (you never know when you will be invited to a Mamma Mia themed party.
• The X-Files Boxed Set Volume 2 on VHS to complete your set.
• A jumper with cats on it.
• An exercise machine from the early '90s that looks like it will give you either permanent leg cramp or take an eye out.
• The above card in a box with other cards with a funny, yet heartfelt message written inside.

Eating Overseas Part Two

Last year we had a competition on our newsletter (to sign up just enter your email address into the form on the left hand side!) and asked people to tell us about some bad overseas eating experiences. Now these types of stories are stories I will never grow tired of so when the email entries starting coming in I was enthralled, so much so I decided to draw them. As I am leaving today for an overseas trip I thought I would share some more of the drawings. You can see the first lot I posted in October over here.

Food is always a funny subject, and I am well aware that my aversion to lots of things is purely psychosomatic, like the time I ate venison heart not knowing what it was. Turns out it was delicious, but had I known what it was I doubt it would have gone anywhere near my eating trap.

If you have any stories you would like to share feel free to tweet, facebook or
email them to us.

Did You Know?

Did you know the ratio of cat cards to non cat cards we now make has doubled since we got a cat?

Did you know our cat Bubsy has her own Instragram account? You can follow her at @bubsypuss, or just eye roll the fact that we made an Instagram account for our cat.

Did you know that Bubsy is one of the few cats that doesn't like boxes? We put it down to the time we thought a box would be okay to house her before her trip to the vet to get fixed up. Boy we were wrong and it turns out cats are strong!

Our cat box card is available on Etsy.

Did you know we can now print to the edge of our cards? This makes me very happy. This card is also available on etsy and it is very bright.

Local Brunswick Love - By Josephine

As we live and work in Brunswick, we can often go the whole working week without leaving the suburb, save for Saturday when we roll up to Rose Street Market in Fitzroy. You would think we would get cabin fever but often we don't notice until we pop into the city and realise we have not been there in ages. Since moving to our current office two years ago, we now travel over Sydney Road to get to our office from Lygon Street and this has made our Brunswick experience a whole lot better.

I remember over a year ago, although it feels like a lot less than that, I was walking along Sydney Road just over Albert Street and spotted an almost open By Josephine. I think I snapped a pic and took it back to show Gareth as I was pretty excited. I think the all white decor appealed the part of me that day dreams about running my own cafe. I know I am not alone in this day dream and I am sure it has crossed everyone in Melbourne's mind at one time or another and it is probably a good question to ask people at a dinner party, so, what would your cafe/restaurant/bar be like?

Over the last year we have been a few times and Gareth loves it for one slightly unusual reason. They make really good decaf coffee.

Gareth decided to quit caffeine a few years ago in a move some in Melbourne might call utterly ridiculous. Gareth however doesn't care that his people are scorned, in fact he wants to bring everyone over to the slightly less perky dark side and the decaf flat white at By Josephine is in his artillery to win the war on caffeine. Sadly his battle with me was lost, although the coffee was lovely,  I won't be breaking up with the big C just yet. 

Cake is another big C we are both a fan of and we got one of these big round coconuty balls called a Merveilleux to share. We were told what lay within and how to say it, but armed with this information I was still excited to cut inside and see what was going on. The mixture of chocolate, meringue and cream was interesting, fun and yum and perfect for the coffee, both caffeinated and non caffeinated.

If you're not a big sweets fans, they also have a savoury lunch menu which we have not tried, but sounds really good. But who are we kidding, we go for the cake!

You can find By Josephine here:

356 Sydney Road

Brunswick

3056 Victoria

And you can like them on Facebook here.

Keep Cool Melbourne!

We finally got a cat!

In exciting Able And Game news, we finally got a pet cat. Since we moved into our office two years ago we have seen a whole bunch of stray cats hanging around and we finally managed to tame one. Her name is Bubsy and she is slowly adapting to apartment living after a good few months as a stray. Of course we have made her an Instagram account and you can follow her @bubsypuss to see all her antics. We have been watching the TV show My Cat From Hell with Jackson Galaxy and have taken to using the line WWJD (What Would Jackson Do) and although she isn't from hell, adapting a stray to inside life has been an interesting adventure.

Now we have all this extra cat inspiration we are pretty sure that we will be making lots more cat cards and we are pretty excited that this card actually came true: