Fell asleep on Fri night thinking about the finer points of the recipe for hawker style soupy prawn noodles. Woke up on Sat inspired. So I gathered the ingredients at the market and on Saturday afternoon while the kids were at their assorted classes and KH working at the dining table, Lolita and I got to work.

It didn't taste good at the stock level but the finished product was surprisingly tasty and sweet. Not a bad attempt for a first time, declared KH. Isaac rated it 6.5 out of 10. But the girls liked it and I finished all the soup in my bowl, something which I don't usually do at the hawker joints no matter how much I like the noodles.

While I largely followed Mrs Lee's recipe from the original Mrs Lee's Cookbook, I also did not adhere strictly to it and adjusted for taste. For instance, Mrs Lee added MSG, while I went without. She also added pig's tail and pig skin, which I also skipped. I substituted brown sugar for her white sugar. Oh and I added a fat clove of garlic to the stock. I also changed the order of some steps but other than that, it was similar.

I do want to document this before I forget, so here's my recipe (and notes) for prawn noodles.

1 kg yellow noodles and half packet of bee hoon (parboiled. Be careful not to keep this too long in hot water because the yellow noodles get soft and soggy.)
Kangkong - also parboiled (Mrs Lee included tow gay but I omitted this because of my towgay-hating kids)

500g of soft pork bones (neng kut)
200g of pork fillet (shoulder butt - nicely marbled and considered the 'redder', softer part of the pig)
200g pork fat (cut into small cubes)
500g small prawns (peeled but keep the heads and shells)
4 dried chilli - pounded coarsely
4 small shallots - thinly sliced
1 fat clove of garlic (lightly bashed)
two tablespoons of white peppercorns
brown sugar
salt
dark soya sauce
light soya sauce
2.3l of water (enough for about 8 to 10 bowls of noodles)

First, fry the pork fat in a wok - smells heavenly but the cholesterol must be sky-high! Then I remove the bits of pork fat, leaving the oil and fried the shallots till golden-brown. Remove that and most of the oil. Fry the 500g of soft pork bones including the 200g pork fillet. Add a bit of oil when necessary. Remove the pork to a large stock pot. The pork would have emitted a bit of water in the frying process but don't remove that from the wok. Add the pounded dry chilli flakes and fry. It forms a paste with the tiny bit of pork stock left in the wok. Add in the prawn shells and fry until it turns bright red. Add in the 2.3l of water. Leave to boil, add peppercorns, clove of garlic, brown sugar, salt, dark and light soya sauce to taste and for colour. Stock should be a dark brown with a tinge of orange. When you are happy with the taste (this is not the point where you taste and decide if you'll have a winner on your hands, just taste to see if it is adequately salty or sweet enough) and with the colour, strain the stock in the wok (hey it rhymes!) into the larger stock pot where the pork is resting. Bring to boil again. Boil the de-shelled prawns, remove when cooked. Also remove the 200g pork fillet and slice thinly.

Serve the parboiled noodles, kangkong, slices of pork and prawn in very hot soup (keep stock pot bubbling hot) garnished with the pork fat and shallot oil, side dishes of chilli padi and soya sauce. Add in a dash of chilli powder if you like the chilli-hot kick. The soft pork bones can also be served with the dish since soft pork bones have a generous padding of meat, this would have softened with the frying and boiling and the meat slides off the bone very easily while still tasting sweet.

The taste of this can be described as mellow and comforting. The pork and prawn stock blend in nicely so that you can taste both elements of land and sea. The proportion of 500g pork bones and 500g prawns to 2.3l of water ensures a stock that is thick with flavour. Mrs Lee's original recipe called for 200g prawn and 300g pork bones, so I'm confident that this version would have a tastier stock.

Note that the prawn stock, once blended and reboiled with the soft pork bones, would taste much better and more 'complete' after being mixed and boiled with the pork. I made the mistake of tasting only the prawn stock and grimaced thinking something was missing. I thought I had a disaster on my hands since the prawn stock tasted weird and 'off'. But later, when I had a go at the finished product, the prawn and pork had melded into a nice blend of flavours - sweet, tasty. And no MSG! So overall, I would declare this effort a success but would need to work on it to refine it again and add that oomph factor. Maybe next time I'll include the pig's tail and the pig skin.

Finally, the taste would not be complete without the sinfulness of pork fat oil. Even plain shallot oil cannot make up for the fragrance and texture of lard in the soup. The extra lardy bits, shallots and oil went into a glass bottle for future use. Really, throw the diet plan out of the window when eating this otherwise you would not be doing the dish justice by omitting the lard and the oil.

Trin reads!

Was busy over the weekend adjusting my powerpoint slides for a talk on birth and babies with Trin on my lap as usual. To my surprise, she read the words "happy" "God" "birth" "baby" along with her usual sight words - to, on, the, can etc.

Any progress is good progress. I'm happy she's picking up words that she's seen often. The word 'God' obviously was picked up from the slides shown at mass!

Speech-wise, I'm working with her on using correct particles - which are now missing from her speech/sentences. Also, concepts like 'on/under', 'front/behind' and early math concepts like patterns, comparing length and size.

Baby steps. All very heartening to this lazy mom - I am inspired to get off my lazy butt and do more now!

Also nice to note that she prays before bedtime. Very cute, goes like this: "Goodnight God, goodnight Jesus, goodnight Mother Mary, goodnight angels, goodnight saints. Thank you for everything. I love you. Please take care of me. Amen."

Owain does not know how to make the sign of the cross but Trin can and will. Unlike her brother, she 'participates' in mass by going for communion with me, arms crossed/folded over her chest and she enjoys bowing, the sign of peace and identifying words on the big screen. I find her so cute and I'm not alone. The other day she wore this cute long maxi dress to church, her hair pinned up with a dozen flowery clips, her arms nicely folded, marching back to the pew - elicited lots of 'oooh so cute' remarks from other worshippers.

According to the Mayan calendar, the world will end in 2012.

Yeah, it just might, since the Mayan calendar runs out of days just about then. And then mankind will be decimated in a mighty nuclear apocalypse or aliens will come in motherships with flashing disco lights and enslave humans to distant star colonies. Or maybe there will be giant tsunamis that wipe all land off the face of the earth - all because we did not heed the global warming warning. People will be lining up from here to eternity at the Pearly Gates and St Peter will be striking names off his longish list (about 144,000 according to the bible). There will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Something like that.

But before all that happens - there's my 20th wedding anniversary to celebrate. I refuse the allow the world to end before then.

Like crossing the international dateline, depending on your perspective, the actual 20th year is either in 2011 (where we registered our marriage and could now have permissible legal sex) or in 2012 where I had that horror-story of a tacky wedding with a bad perm and pink-eye. Either way, the world must NOT end until I've had my 20th anniversary fun. (for planning purposes I think I will define the period as being from June 28 2011 to Feb 8 2012)

Because I had a tacky wedding, I am determined to do it right this time and have a super-duper, solid, no-holds-barred anniversary celebration.

I don't want any fancy expensive diamond rings to commemorate 20 years together - why waste good money on a rock? Instead, just like how Singapore loves to celebrate milestone events - with many 'fringe' and 'core' events, that's how I'll plan our 20th WA celebrations! Cue gleeful handrubbing and evil cackling. Poor KH... he just does not have a clue what will hit him. Okay, neither have I, but I'm having fun with this for now!

Whatever plan I have definitely includes a weekend in Marriage Encounter. He owes me and the church. We didn't go for the church's Marriage Preparation Course back then and he promised Fr Francis that we would go to ME to make up for it. But of course, the man turned squeamish and thinks ME is marriage counselling AA style so he refused to go. But with the 20th year coming up, no more excuses!

But the biggie for me is The Trip. It will be our first trip sans kids in I dunno how many years! I think the trip will last at least 2 weeks if not more. Not sure where we will go and that's part of the fun of planning.

With my current Japan craze, its likely to cover Japan (ooh, onsens, rotemburo, ryokans - reason to splurge on a relatively expensive one for a night since we will not have kids with us! - love hotels, capsule hotels, backpacking). Maybe take an overnight ferry from Japan to Vladivostok and then train down to Beijing? I've always wanted to just backpack Japan with KH. We'll take the train mostly but also do a bit of driving eg in Shikoku. We would just stop for the night at any town when we got tired enough or if the place looked nice enough. Not too much planning, just spontaneity. We have not done this sort of trip for so long.

Or maybe we'll go back to Europe - its been so long. We'll visit old haunts like Venice, the Italian lakes, our favourite hotel in Sienna and in Sorrento (Hotel Lorely et Londres - surly waiter, beautiful room, old terazzo floor, a generous terrace, fragrant lemon groves below and the blue sea further down). And then there's pretty Vernazza on the Cinque Terra. I still remember the sunset on the top of the ruined castle on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean and the colouring-book cute pastel houses down below. You can't get more romantic than that... Only thing is, the euro is just too high to make any European trip value for money these days.

Or perhaps we will revisit Hawaii where we had our honeymoon in 1992. We still talk about it and remember all those quirky bits - when we unknowingly stayed in a 'boutique' hotel which had the night trade as a sideline and the slinkiest streetwalkers I've seen, getting lost in the misty hills off Kiluaea on the Big Island and then chancing upon the cutest little B&B I've seen, driving up past pastureland, into and above the clouds in our red convertible to the roof of Haleakala to watch the sunset, and of course, me puking three times on the 300 hairpin turns on the infamous road to Hana. Who can forget that.

This time, might be nice to go back to Maui and bring that long-held fantasy to life - renewing our wedding vows on a clifftop in Maui with the Pacific Ocean pounding on the rocky shores below, in a picture-perfect vermillion Hawaiian sunset... ooh yes nice thought... but first got to lose enough weight to look good on that clifftop! And we'll have to bring the kids for that vow-renewal thingy if we go that route. Would be more costly then... but still, wouldn't it be nice? To have my children around us as we renew our vows? I can see Isaac and Gillian rolling their eyes at their cheesy mom again...

In 2011, Isaac would be 15 and Gillian, 16 by then. Caitlin would be 10, Owain 8 and Trinity 6 years old. Just thinking about all this makes me sigh - how big they will be, how far we've come.

After all the hills and valleys that KH and I have trudged up and down together for 20 years, I think we've earned the right to celebrate this and celebrate this well! I'm off to do more fantasising... no, I mean planning...

I've liquidated my life insurance. Finally got round to doing this after procrastinating over months/weeks.

I bought this policy for all the wrong reasons 18 years ago. Insurance as a form of investment, ie if you hope to see returns, is really the wrong instrument. The policy had no coverage for critical illness (not that this is a great idea anyway) and I'm no longer so altruistic that I would buy insurance just so that I can leave a tidy sum to my kids when I'm dead and gone. Not as if the death payout for this policy was so great either.

So couple of months ago, I bought a term life plan for higher coverage and lower premiums - my kids will now get more when I die and I pay less while I'm alive. Hm sounds weird but there's logic in that sentence somewhere. Anyways, with the lower premium, I can take the extra bit and add it to a savings plan and grow the money.

Now that I've cashed the policy in, I have a modest five-figure sum from the policy cash-back. Which means I need to invest it. The banks pay crap interest and honestly, there are better ways to grow money. I plan to invest this lump sum, then turn my MSA account (which pays crappy interest) into a regular fixed savings-investment plan.

I don't intend to touch this money in the short to medium term. My only aim is to grow the funds a bit more before I take them out and re-invest again. Slow and steady is the way to go here, so I'll be patient.

Only thing is - which plan and/or which fund to buy into? Mindboggling headache since there are so many funds out there.

Having this teeny nest egg sure makes me feel good. It's not much and in fact, most people would definitely laugh at the amount, but for someone like me, whose never had this much money before in her bank account and who lives from month to month in a mild panic with a near empty bank account, it sure feels good to have a little more padding in the money dept. I mean, to have enough to even consider 'investment', that's something! Me and my money now, feels kinda like Scrat and his acorn.

So why I am depressed? What is this blue funk I am in? That led me to massacre my hair.

Two weeks ago, my vaca plans were dashed when KH said he was anticipating a large tender coming in and he'd have to design the system. We had to pay extra to defer our plane tickets to December. Luckily his company paid up. But still, there went my two weeks of vaca in Penang.

Just then, my colleague told me I'd have to move. Move from my cosy cubicle in the sky, with its own window space, down to the bowels of the general office. Okay, I exaggerate but yes, I will have to move. The space I have now is lovely - a largish cubicle, great roomies, the water-cooler is right next door and I have a window - premium stuff! Here, far away from my boss, I could listen to music while I worked, check on emails etc. Okay, generally slack off, bad girl that I am.

But now, the party's over. I have to move. Down to the main office where I lose my window and my sense of privacy. I've looked at the plans and its 'open concept' office where basically every Joe that walks past behind me gets to see what's on my screen. I feebly protest. Didn't get anywhere. Bargained for a 'screen' - quite desperately - but does not look like it will succeed. I have ideas for hot-desking but I also don't think it will work and right now, am too uninspired to try raising it.

Went home in a big depressed haze. Brooding. Panicky.

When KH's big tender papers failed to show, he decided to cheer me up by taking us to Malacca for a short extended weekend trip.

There, the full extent of my stress and depression was unleashed - on my face. I broke out with a red, tender, splotchy and swollen mess of a rash that spread from my left cheekbone to my left eyelid, down to my left earlobe. It wasn't any ordinary rash. It had irregular shaped blobs of pus.

To say I looked awful is an understatement. KH said I looked like someone bashed me up. But I gamely walked around Malacca and KL. Did I care that I looked like shit? No. I didn't know anyone and trusted that no one knew me and anyway, I was happy to wallow in depression.

Notwithstanding all that, I had a decently good time eating my favourite stuff (mee siam at Donald and Lily's, razor clams in belachan, prawn mee, wanton mee) and discovered where Madam Fatso had gone to. Next trip I will have my milk crabs. I was also happy to find a good range of Kdramas and their OSTs. So now I know where I can get my K-drama fix in Malacca.

Came home to find that while the rash on the face subsided, it had erupted on my left arm. A visit to the doctor and to the specialist drew blanks. Even a swab and culture came up empty. The doctor was baffled but as it was clearing up, we let it pass. I think its remnants of a mutated herpes virus that got triggered by my stress and depression over my office move.

On top of that, I had a fever while in Malacca. Spiked high one night and then went away. But as the days passed, I developed a dry cough which is now getting worse. As I write, I can hear the chest-rattling phlegm whenever I coughed.

So now, my funk. I was actually relieved to be on medical leave and not be back in the office. Could not bear that I am one day, one week closer to moving. Not just moving location but moving to a different phase of my work life. Gosh that sounds so drama, but I feel it so. I think this move is just a catalyst for what has been swirling deep inside me for the longest time.

This weird mix of restlessness, boredom, sadness.

My funk - if I have to put it simply, I guess I'm searching for some meaning in life. That sounds very trite.

I don't know what else there is to do in life. Not very happy at work. I find work and life in general, a grind and generally I'm feeling very restless but I'm also scared to probe, look too deep or ask myself too many hard questions in case I don't like what I see. Does it make sense to say I'm running from myself?

I think I know my problem. Too lazy. Have it too good and now cannot stir myself. Thats why work looks so unappealing. I've thought about it. The only cure for laziness is to cut off choice. Throw me into the deep end where I have no time to decide if I would like to have a pina colada on the beach or pink champagne on the lounger - I just have to swim. But the very thought of that horrifies my lazy soul to the core. Look at the poor starving masses in a famine or poverty-stricken land - no choice, they just take what is given. Laziness is an affliction of the well-endowed. Not talking about financially rich. I'm certainly not that. But in my life, I have been very blessed and look what I have done with it. I've become fatter and lazier and wasted it.

I am naturally indolent but its now eating away at me. I procrastinate and am easily gratified by cheap retail therapy. The hair therapy was a mistake. I am not a productive mother at home and I'm not productive in the office either. Then I feel guilty for being non-productive.

I look in the future and ask: so what's there eh? Solution: quit boring job but that is too frightening and too much for my lazy butt to comtemplate. Even that might not be an answer. Find a passion and do something - but like what? Even birth issues make me feel laggy. I don't feel the same passion/fire for it. So then what? I did think of going back to school - picking up a uni course since I never did go to uni. But its just idle empty thoughts. I don't think I have the courage to do this.

See what I mean when I say I am going around in aimless circles?

After two weeks of feeling grief at losing my comfy space in life, my cubicle and generally anger at being uprooted, I think I have come to terms a bit better with it. I tell myself God has a plan. He must surely have a plan for me when I move. I may not like it. I may not know what's coming. Indeed, it might force me into action from my current slug position. I don't know. I just get the feeling that there are rapids ahead but also I cling on to the knowledge that God has a plan. And whatever plan, it will work out for me somehow. So that makes me feel a bit better. Maybe this is exactly what I need. Not want, but need.

I'm still thinking so tune in next time for another episode of Momto5 Goes Quietly Insane.

Combine mild depression, restlessness, boredom and a trip to the hairdresser and what do you get?

Yes, exactly that. A hairy recipe for disaster!

I ended up doing something which I have not done for more than 15 years - get a perm. Thanks to my hairdresser who coaxed me into it - though to be fair, she'd tried before but I never caved, until now. The magic words she uttered which finally did the trick: "I just want you to try it. If you don't try anything how will you know whether you like it or not?"

So in a reckless moment of abandonment, I said: Okay lah!

Before that, I cross-examined her on maintenance, hair damage, cost, how long the perm was going to take, if my puffy face was going to look puffier and to be specific, "just how curly is curly? wavy curly? afro curly?"

Wavy curly. Big curls. You will look soooo cute, she assured me happily. And young too!

$273 poorer and 2 hours later I emerged.

Owain ran out to greet me when I came home, stopping short and staring and finally saying: You look funny mom. And then he yelled for the rest: COME SEE WHAT MOM DID TO HER HAIR!

Cait's frank opinion summed it up: "you look like yoo-jin three years later."

That cryptic line is shorthand for godawful-ugly.

For non k-drama fans, Yoo Jin is the female lead character in Winter Sonata. Played by k drama queen Choi Ji Woo, she had short hair in the serial. But in the last episode, the story flashforwarded three years. And tada, here comes Yoo Jin in the most stilted, stiff hair extensions I'd ever seen. They seem attached to her straight hair as an after-thought. Back then, while watching, I'd rolled my eyes at the hair and got the girls laughing about it.

But now, its payback time. So I look quite the ageing (and puffy) version of Yoo Jin. Argh. Very ajumma.

Later my sweet Cait said, while playing Monopoly Deal with her depressed mom, "Mom, I actually think you look better in this hairstyle. Really. I'm not just saying that."

Sweet liar.

KH came home late so he never saw my hair last night. But this morning he said, very bluntly: "What happened to your hair?" When I didn't reply, he snorted: "Ah-soh hair!"

Yes, kick me when I'm down, why don't you?

There goes $273. Never. In. My. Life. I've never paid so much for mere hair. *sob* All that went though my mind as I trudged down Orchard Road after leaving Shunji was:

"$273 is half an air ticket to Japan."
"I could buy three $90 Japanese melons with that"
"That's like, 5 expensive freshly-shucked oyster laden buffets."
"A night's stay in a hotel here"
"Two nights stay in a KL hotel, or two rooms for the whole family for one night in KL"
"More than 10 CDs"
"About 13 DVD boxsets"
"Two family sushi treats"
"The price of one facial package at the Body Shop"
and
"WTF was I thinking????"

Live and learn. Live and learn. I thought I did. Thought I passed my salad days of bad hair decisions made while deep in the misery trough. Obviously not. 40 years old and I'm still making vanity mistakes.

I will be in hibernation until my hair grows out or until I get used to my hair. Whichever comes first.

Meanwhile, I'm still depressed.