I went diving with sharks as part of my birthday “festival”. It was such an incredible experience!

Leading up to the event, lots of people asked me – Are you scared? How do you feel?

The truth was, I wasn’t scared at all. I knew lots of people who have dived in the aquarium before, I know that the sharks are well fed, I know that the aquarium has an excellent safety track record with no incidents, and I know that the aquarium has many divers going into the tank each day and all the sea creatures are used to seeing divers.

So I was feeling very confident, chilled and quite relaxed about the whole thing. In fact I was wondering when I would actually feel THRILLED or SCARED.

As we geared up, I started to feel excited. I was finally doing something that I have wanted to do in such a long time! This was the moment!

We got into the tank, and we swam around. It was very cool! When I used to go diving, very rarely would I see so many large creatures in one place and one time. There were turtles, sting rays, huge cod fish, and of course 20 or so sharks. The biggest shark was 3.5m.

All the sea creatures swam near the surface, and you didn’t want to bump into any of them. So the biggest rule for the tank dive was: stay at the bottom. We were loaded with extra weights to keep ourselves down, and we practically scrambled and crawled along the bottom.

We followed an underwater path along the aquarium tunnel and during the course, we were required to swim OVER the tunnel one by one. Which meant we had to be near the surface for a few seconds, by ourselves. But of course, the dive master would tell us the exact moment to do it.

At this point, I was ever so-slightly nervous. It was like crossing a road. Look left. Look right. Look out for oncoming sharks! I was the first person over. I had so much extra weight added to my dive gear, that it was a real struggle to swim over the curve of the tunnel, but I made it.

I sat on a rock by myself, catching my breath, waiting for the rest of the group. Then I saw this HUGE shark coming towards me. It was just swimming closer and closer in my direction.

At first I was thinking… OK. I’ll just duck a bit lower.

But it just kept coming closer! I shrunk back and back and back, until I was almost curled up like a freaked out turtle. Eeek! It was SO CLOSE TO ME. I swear I could have reached out and touched its head. I was absolutely petrified for a grand total of 3 seconds.

Phew. After that, it was all a walk in the park. I found a shark’s tooth, which was mine to keep! Then we had a hot shower and a cup of tea.

It was an amazing experience!

This is me, being dared into taking a photo of myself in this HUGE café mirror.

I’m wearing a dress that I found at the bottom of my cupboard the other day. I haven’t worn it in ages! I didn’t have the heart to toss it out, because it used to always put a smile on my face.

Tee hee, it’s so exciting to discover old favourites.

The other day we decided throw our normal evening routine in the air and do something a little different with the kids.

We brought them to a cafe for some peppermint tea and honey joys.

I tried to teach them how to play Backgammon, but I failed miserably.

We talked about music posters, tea leaves, couch stains and rocket ships.

We walked along the busy evening streets, hand in hand with our two favourite little people. Life is grand.

This evening, we were invited to TWO 21st birthday parties!

Tee hee. Just saying that makes me giggle, as it’s been a while since I turned 21.

We dropped the kids off at my parent’s house, then made our way to the first party – a Superhero and Villain party. Happy Bithday Michelle! It was such fun! There were heaps of very cool costumes. I love themed parties, where everyone is absolutely committed to dressing up!

As for me, I was toying with the idea of going as Wonder Woman or Cat Woman. But, uh, I’d have a lot of explaining to do at the next party… so I was the party pooper who didn’t dress up in theme.

The other 21st was heaps of fun too. Happy Bithday Josh!

It was a dinner function at The Red Herring. I only knew a handful of people there, and worked my way around the table. I talked and talked and talked. Then I lost my voice! Or rather, my voice started to break and squawk. Then I ended up sounding like a “ditzy, husky, porn star” for the rest of the night.

All through the evening, from the other end of the table, I noticed that a gorgeous blonde woman kept eyeing me up. After dinner, she walked over to me and said, “OMG I’ve been looking at your dress all night. I just LOVE what you’re wearing. Is it Marc Jacobs? Is it Diane von Furstenberg?? You must tell me where you got it!”

I laughed in my husky porn-star voice, and said, “HEY THANKS!” Then I leaned in and said in a hushed tone, “This is just too funny: I bought it at Target for $35!!”

She also leaned in and said, “Gasp!! Oh I’m with you babe, these boots are from Kmart!”

We both giggled like school girls and made fun of designer dresses.

Ah, it was such a great night out!

This evening my husband and I traipsed across every corner of the Perth city area, checking out venues for another function I’m organising.

Yep! I’m turning 30 in July and I’m having a big party! Yay!

This is us in East Perth, taking silly photos. The evening was gorgeous. The courtyards leading down to the river were lit up like a romantic movie set. Even the shadows were so pretty. The trees sparkled and the paving stones glowed with colour.

What is it with girls and fairy lights?

This evening my husband and I went to do some Latin dance classes.

It was the Introductory Salsa and Merengue Dance Class for Complete Beginners. It was held upstairs, above a popular bar. There were heaps of people and the “scene” seemed pretty cool. It was a pay-as-you-go format, so you weren’t locked into any long term commitments!

But the truth is, we’re not exactly complete beginners. We used to dance regularly in 2000. Then we tried to pick it up again in 2003.

That was 5 years ago! We’ve pretty much forgotten everything, so we feel we need to start from the beginning. After the Introductory Class, they held a series of Beginner and Intermediate classes. But we just stayed to watch.

It was soooo much fun! We got the rhythm and steps really quickly, and I found that I was focusing more on my technique and my poise. You gotta look good on the dance floor! There’s nothing worse than a cardboard dancer! Ah, it was all good fun.

It was such an excellent evening doing something fun with the husband.

I organised a Girl’s Night Out dinner for all the mum’s at my son’s pre-primary school class.

We had 14 women turn up! It was sooooo much fun! I had such a great time. I can’t believe how lovely everyone is. I’m on this crazy high from being surrounded by so many nice women!

We laughed so much. First everyone rocked up with LOTS OF RED WINE. Then we giggled at each other – because you know, we’ve never seen each other in nice clothes, makeup and high heel shoes. Then we went into hysterics as we swapped stories about how our children insisted on dressing us, choosing our clothes and jewellery.

We were there for almost 4 hours. Talking, laughing, eating, drinking. We were put on a long table, and I made everyone shuffle seats to mingle and chat to others. Most of us ordered the set banquet and we just shared everything. It was great!

Best parts of the evening : The girly and motherly bonding. Strengthening a little community and forming friendships that will last a lifetime. Getting to know the parents of the kids that my kids will hang out with. Making friends with mothers in my area. And the HILARIOUS stories!

I got a few emails from women asking how I organised it, as they were inspired to do the same for the mums in their kid’s class. It was really simple! I completely recommend it!

I chose the time, date, place and format.
I printed out a text-only invite on coloured paper.
I popped them into all the children’s take-home pigeonholes.
I made a booking in a restaurant for 10 people.
The mum’s had to RSVP by the day before.
I would let the restaurant know the final numbers on the afternoon of the dinner.
That was it.

I worked out that the Friday night before Mother’s Day would best result in husband’s agreeing to babysit the kids.

I chose a popular restaurant that was local. It was pretty much 2 minutes drive from everyone’s house. Lots of women car pooled or got dropped off.

I also refrained from making it into a BIG EVENT. A big event with a set programme, door prizes, theme or whatever, usually expects the person to invest a lot of thought into it, they will um and ah about it, and then usually decide that it’s all just too hard.

I just wanted the evening to be A SIMPLE DINNER, COME AS YOU ARE.

Plus it meant, less organising for me!

I have been seriously craving some pamper time lately.

I was tempted to book myself for a massage – because the other night I went out to dinner with some friends and met a masseur. I asked her a zillion questions about her job and as she was describing what she does, I could feel all the muscles in my back prick up in keen attention, screaming “Yes! Us! We need to get us some of that!!”

But I haven’t done any research on where to get a massage, so I settled on a haircut instead. *BLISS*

As the hairdresser snipped and snapped, I suddenly raised my eyes above the pages of my novel and focused on the wall mounted TV screen. I watched Celine Dion sing AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long. I giggled uncontrollably (my husband quite likes AC/DC) and I annoyed my hairdresser, who, I am sure, swore at me in Taiwanese.

This evening I went out to dinner with some friends at Hog’s Breath Cafe. I met some new people and we shared rocky road ice cream from a bowl as big as my head. It was HUGE and absolutely disgusting.

Then we went to the Universal Bar for a friend’s farewell party. The place was packed. The band was great. The bar staff were excellent. The floorboards were vibrating from the noise levels. It was rocking! It was a great night out!

I went to a Lomography exhibition the other evening. And oooh how I love lomos! They are definitely the coolest, quirkiest and craziest kind of photography around. Ah, they always make me giggle and smile.

Lomography started out in the 1990s, when some students got hold of a small Russian camera, the Lomo Kompakt Automat. They went around taking hundreds of snapshots, in crazy, bizarre, random, super-strange situations, angles and positions.

Then they developed them with the cheapest kind of processing they could find, and displayed them as a wall of vibrant images and spontaneous expression – launching a new style of underground artistic photography.

Lomos are characterised by vibrant, high contrast colours and often miscellaneous and eccentric ideas. I think they look so cool!

I couldn’t find anyone to go with me at such late notice, so I was a lone visitor that night.

I did try to make small talk with a few people though. I accidentally thumped a chick with my handbag TWICE, I nearly tripped over a dog (who was strutting around the crowded gallery space), I saw a guy who looked like Michael J. Fox, and I almost bought a lomo print of a spooky streetscape.

I must admit, the first thing I thought was “How do I create the lomographic style in Photoshop?”

And I spent most of my time closely examining all the lomos and planning the series of Photoshop steps and layers I would need to create it. How geeky of me.

We caught up with an old friend this evening.

We ate a delicious Vietnamese meal, and made our way to the new Cafe130 down the road. All the couches in the cafe are black, except for this one! Hideous! It looks like a very big underwear by Bonds.

However the cafe has an awesome selection of real leaf teas, 20 different choices of cakes, chocolate crackles and honeyjoys!

Gotta love honeyjoys and peppermint tea!

Despite the fact that we had such a busy day yesterday, we all woke up at 7am to attend an Easter Egg Hunt. I have to mention that I absolutely despise Easter Egg Hunts – but oh, how I love hot cross buns.

We went to church, stayed for lunch, caught up with my cousins and family. Got home. Slept. Babysitter arrived. Then the hubs and I left for a party.

We went to a friend’s 40th birthday party at the Mosman Park Bowl Club. We ate roasted meats, sipped wine and played bowls in the setting sun, overlooking the river.

It was another glorious day.

(Oh and it was also our 6th wedding anniversary!)

I took my husband out to dinner last night.

He would have been perfectly happy with a cheap and cheerful café, with home-styled Malay food… but I wanted to take him somewhere a little *extra special*.

I found a little restaurant called Cream, in East Perth, with modern Australian food. Our dinner tasted great, the service was good, the wine was delicious. Most importantly, the atmosphere was quiet, sophisticated, classy and romantic – it was perfect.

We chatted throughout dinner, took silly photos and stroked the faux fur covered walls. Later we strolled hand in hand in the moonlight around Claisebrook Cove. It was such a lovely evening, hanging out with my most favourite person in the world. Happy birthday babe.

During the school holidays we went to the Landsdale Farm School with some friends.

It’s a cute, little farm originally developed for school aged children with disabilities. Now it’s open for all to enjoy the plants, animals and features of a farm environment.

I found it wonderfully open and relaxed. It isn’t a “full-on” child educational experience, like the zoo or aquarium. Plus entry is only $3 per person.

You just wander around and explore all the corners of the farm. Let the kids run around and enjoy themselves. Turn up to a few feeding sessions. Pick sunflowers in the herb gardens. Have a pony ride. Eat a packed (or bought) lunch under the trees. Let the kids play in the playground.

Look that’s us on a pony cart! At first I refused to have a pony ride with the kids. I saw how that pony was walking! I’d get sea sick! I’m the Sea Sick Puking Queen! I’ll be throwing up all over the place! After a pony ride! I’ll make children cry!

But the Pony Woman talked me into it. She assured me that she’d go slow.

Overall, it was such a fantastic, simple and easy morning.

This weekend, we went to the wedding of some really close friends. It was all so lovely and touching. I don’t know what it is, but lately I’ve been getting so emotional at weddings. Maybe because all my good friends are getting married, and it’s just another sign that we’re all growing up.

I kept having these flashbacks of when we used to make enormous whirlpools in my parent’s pool, go on bike rides around the neighbourhood, play crazy beach soccer, make ourselves puke from the roller coaster ride at Adventure World. Ah the good old days.

I was invited to join a small group of friends to sing a special wedding song for the couple. I haven’t been in a choir in years. I was embarrassingly rusty, but I think I did ok. It was a really nice wedding song, so I enjoyed myself.

The “choir” also had a dress code: pastel pink, apricot or yellow. I seriously had nothing in that colour range. So I had to open some old boxes, and dug out a really, really old dress (when I was going through an Alannah Hill phase) and freaked out most of my friends – I wore pink!

The reception was held at the Esplanade Hotel Fremantle. We had such a good time! The music playing that night was the funniest collection of old school 80s and 90s stuff – so fun to dance to!

A very amusing thing happens when we go to wedding dinners - my husband and I always end up on the “miscellaneous guests” table. Haha we don’t mind, it’s always good fun. We think it’s probably due to the fact that we like talking to complete strangers and we like to switch seats with people throughout the night!

So we chatted to heaps of interesting people, danced, took silly photos and enjoyed ourselves immensely!

The other day we went to a birthday party. An adults only pool party.

While it might conjure up images best left unseen, here is a very amusing photo I took early on in the evening.

All the men were in the pool, building a bridge of inflatable toys for the birthday boy to scramble across. You had to be there. Very entertaining.

No matter what their age, boys will be boys.

The other night, my husband and I went to a digital and computing industry end-of-year celebration, Massive 2007. Seemed like everyone was there – from hard core digital artists, to techie game developers, to the business web types, to the brainy computer geeks of the SIGGRAPH world.

It was held at the much raved about, newly renovated club, The Library (previously The Church).

I always feel that these events are for people to do their annual networking. And I always wish I could go to these events and do some serious networking.

But I can’t seem to take my Christmas networking very seriously. I have half a drink and the next thing I know, I’m having conversations about marinated olives, medieval nightclub décor and how to pick up hot chicks at a REAL library.

I managed to meet a whole lot of new people though, so it was quite fun.

Near the end, I strolled into an oddly lit room, decked out with black leather padded walls, embossed black velvet textiles, a window wall with glass beads, and bright pink disco lights. It was all very lush.

Standing beside a plasma screen fireplace and under the stuffed moose head, were two very hot guys with beers. I suddenly did a double take and realised that I “knew” one of the guys from the blogging circles of Perth.

We chatted for about 5 seconds, then I realised that they were setting up for a video podcast, as part of their show Scouta TV – where they talk about the weird, wonderful, popular and most talked-about videos and podcasts on the internet.

So if you’re a bit like me, you’d probably be insanely curious to hear two young, hot, intelligent, Aussie geek guys talk about online videos and other geeky stuff. Not to mention, you’d probably be so out of the loop, you need someone to tell you what’s cool.

Check it out! It’s pretty good! And geeks are hot.

The other night I went to the opening of an art event called, Alphabet City as part of Artrage and the Northbridge Festival.

It was great fun! Well organised and very cool! I met some random people. We grabbed a Precinct Map and worked our way around the art circuit – wondering here and there, bumping into the colourful crowds of the arty underground.

We saw everything from framed modern prints, to urban graffiti art, to snow board art, to a warehouse exploding with confetti and singing robot penguins. It was loads of fun!

This is my friend and I posing on one of the exhibits in The Ice Cream Factory.

Two weeks on a camping road trip is certain to make you enjoy the simple pleasures of a noisy wine bar.

Good food. Good wine. Good to be OUT SOCIALISING.

We met up with some friends for some wine tasting at The Grapeskin Wine Bar - an old favourite of mine.

It’s definitely one of the nicer and trendier places to sit in Northbridge. Particularly if you like people watching and checking out cute bar men.

Anyway, this is how much wine there is in a taster glass. And this, my friends, is how much it takes to get me completely smashed.

Last week, we joined some friends for dinner at an Indian restaurant in Fremantle.

We braved the rain and cold, but it was so worth it. My mouth was watering as I looked through the menu. I couldn’t decide. I was so hungry. Give me anything! Now!

My review of the Maya Indian Restaurant : The interior was really arty and stylish.

It was warm, modern, sophisticated. Plus, dotted around the restaurant were displays showing off fashion garments, fabrics and jewellery for sale. It was quite cool.

The food arrived quickly. It was DELICIOUS, fresh and tasty. Prices were reasonable. The wait staff were excellent and helpful. Nothing to complain about! Highly recommended!

On Saturday night, I was invited to attend a photography exhibition launch and cocktail party. Funny thing was, I have never met the photographer in person before!

I met Pamie through this website. We exchanged a few emails and got chatting. It was really refreshing and inspiring to get to know someone who has a passion for something, and has enough guts to make something of it.

Her exhibition was excellent – with heaps of stunning, striking and elegant images – details of the urban environment we often forget to look at. I really enjoyed it! Plus I chatted to a bunch of new and interesting people. Exhibitions are inspiring!

Pamie’s now working as a freelance photographer, and I wish her all the best!