We Are Warriors!

Okay, maybe I am a little bit of a bandwagon fan, but I’m so glad that the hype (no…the facts) got me to notice Stephen Curry, because he is absolutely killing it! Steph Curry is 6’3 point guard for the Golden State Warriors. He’s Christian, he’s well spoken, and the best shooter in all basketball…and I am not kidding. He leads the NBA in 3 pointers and his accuracy is over 45% (that’s good in basketball terms).

The Warriors, this year, are 1st in the regular season with 2nd place 10 games behind, and presently have swept the New Orleans Pelican 4-0 in the first round of the playoffs. Game 3 was so exciting in which Curry scored 6 points in the span of 9 seconds to tie the game (everybody thought it should have been an “and 1”) in the 4th quarter, and got the Warriors back from a 20 point deficit to win it in overtime. I’m predicting they’ll go against the Houston Rockets in the 2nd round, and totally win against whoever they play against in the weak Eastern Conference. Anyways, I’m hoping that everybody on the team stays healthy and that they enjoy the ride 🙂

Snapshot of Wong’s April 2015

In order to kinda get to know me again, I should let you see…what’s been happening…I mean, I don’t even know where to start! We bought a house in Santa Clara in January 2014, and have lived here for almost 1 ½ years. Housing prices are crazy in the Bay Area. I mean, I thought our price was extremely expensive, and yet, prices are now $125k MORE than it was when we bought ours! During this time, as mentioned in my previous blog post, we’ve been going through a few renters. I think Anson would rather have a long term person, but I feel like they have been working out well. Our recent renter has been here since September, and the new one who is moving in today hopes to be here for at least 6 months to a year. Our prices are pretty competitive especially since everybody seems to want to live in the Bay Area. All the construction that I ever see is for high density housing…granted, the apartments look pretty nice, but that also just means more people and more cars on the road…it’s someday gonna turn out like LA…

Anyways, I work at Bill Wilson Center as an Accountant. I was hired as an Accounting Clerk, and was promoted 6 months later to Accountant 1. The pay still is not that great (Anson has had 3 raises in the span of 1 year and 1 month and makes 3 times as much as me, but maybe I shouldn’t compare). My pay is still the best I’ve had in my lifetime and is one way to support my family. I’m also learning more things that before. I know full-cycle Accounts Payable, deposits, cash receipts, program fees, reconciling advances, gift cards, help case manager with checks, petty cash, and gift cards, etc. It’s busy, but it makes the day go faster.

As for church, we are on worship team three times a month every other month. Our worship leaders are Daniel L, Tim C, and Joe K. Kinda like Daniel’s sets more since he knows how to pick songs that are better with bass and drums. I play piano when it’s needed, but I rather play bass since we don’t always have much time to practice. We attend our respective bookclubs/man groups every other Tuesday. The girls are hosted by Janette (though we might be splitting since we are getting more people into the church), and the guys are led by James and meet at our house. We also do Sunday refreshments once every other month. I enjoy doing this since I like making/preparing food and it brings me joy to feed people. I like shopping too! Anson doesn’t like this as much…but we only do it 6 times a year. Don’t want get too burnt out.

As for what’s been happening recently, Judy and Alex just got married on Saturday. We helped out in the welcome team and had the hard job of not letting 2 couples in until the Judy walked down the aisle. They got married at RBF, so Friday night was busy with practicing for worship while all the decorations were being put up. We also put back the drums and bass after the ceremony. We carpooled with Cindy to San Jose Country Club where the reception took place. Deb L of course was the MC…every wedding I’ve been to up here has been MC’d by Deb (Jocelyn and Peter, Amy and Eric, Kevin and Cassandra, Mario and Claudia…). It was good to see them go from friends to dating to now being married. Yay!

It is our three year anniversary of being married! I can’t believe it’s already three years…wow, how time has passed. In one month, I’m also turning 30. I don’t know if it really bothers me…it’s just a number, but I’ll no longer be in my 20’s anymore…guess a cool goal that we obtained though is that we also have reached a landmark in net assets before turning 30. That’s in large part due to our house appreciating like crazy. For our first year, we went to Monterey, 2nd year, we went to Half Moon Bay, and this year, we’re just gonna stay local, but we’re taking a day off this Friday. We’re gonna catch the early show for Avengers: Age of Ultron (opening day!), and had crab boil for lunch (bucket of crabs, shrimp, corn, sausage, etc). My favs…movie and good food!

Anson’s mom will be coming up to help take care of Uncle Tim next week. She uses all her vacation in order to see him. She loves him very much. Not sure if Uncle Tim and Aunt Helena will be moving back to Southern California at some point since it’s closer to Aunt Helena’s family, and they can help her and give her support. We’ll pick Auntie Esther mom up on Saturday and probably eat lunch with them up in San Mateo.

I think that’s probably it for now. Hope that helps ya remember my oh so busy life. I’ll try to go into deeper stuff at some point. Laters.

My Blogging Resolution

At work, I am actually very caught up. After being here for just a little over a year, I am finally feeling like I’m mastering my work. That means that I have a little more time on my hands. And you know what I have been doing poorly at? Blogging! I can count on my two hands how many blog posts I’ve done this year…and last year. I got to step this up. So, my resolve? Since I have more free time at work (of course, I’ll only do this during my 15 minute breaks!), I will use that time to be more productive and finally catch up on letting y’all…get to know me again, because…

I sometimes don’t really know me now. I’m just busy or tired or both. Blogging always helped me sort out my feelings, but whether it’s just work, church, family life, etc., I just haven’t been writing these things down…and I should! My memory is not as it used to be, and it never was very good to begin with. So, in dedication to my three year anniversary (it’s just conveniently falling on this day), I am resolving to do 50 entries…this year. I did it before, and I loved it. I want to remember who I am when I look back on these entries. Help me love this again.

Renters at Casa de Wong

We’ve been renting out our 2 other bedrooms since May of 2014 (bought house in Jan 2014). We include, all utilities, wifi, paper towels, toilet paper, dishwashing/laundry detergent, and hand soap. We’ve mostly been renting out to friends of friends from church, but we are now branching out to people on Craigslist…of course, must interview them to make sure it’ll be a good fit. Seems like our pricing is still very competitive even though we are increasing the rent, since we had seven inquiries within a few hours. Had to adjust the post though since our other renter is more comfortable with another female in the house instead of male. Newest renter moving in tomorrow! Hope it’ll be a good experience!

Sarah
May 18 – Aug 9
Law student, internship at Yahoo…free meals!
$400/month in smaller room since need to pay for double housing at Davis

John
May 18 – May 31
Law grad, lawyer working in Oakland, 2 hour commute, moved out in two weeks
$750/month for bigger room, very clean, actually irons

Stephanie
July 30 – Jan 15
Acquaintance of Janette, works at Boston Scientific, now attends RBF
$750 for bigger room, moved to smaller room after Sarah moved out in Aug-14 for $600/month

Jo-Ann
Aug 31 – Present
Friend of Christine O., Speech Therapist, church in Hayward, currently looking for jobs in schools
$750 for bigger room, moved to smaller room after Stephanie moved out in Jan-15 for $600/month

Hongla
April 28 – Present
Found on Craigslist…within almost 24 hours, commutes to SF for work, likes board games, anime
$800 for bigger room