Happy New Year! Leaning into a slow start this year with a simple January blog goal to finish rounding up Q3 & Q4 of 2022 and share my word/vision board for 2023. So let’s get to it.

July ’22

July allowed time and space for me and Charles to focus on ourselves for *two* whole days without Beau to celebrate our anniversary. 8 years of marriage and 15 years of togetherness… Wild to reflect on how long we’ve been together and all we’ve experienced from our early 20’s to mid 30’s.

We booked a cozy airbnb right on the Southwest Waterfront in DC and dinner reservations at Del Mar.

We celebrated our anniversary at Del Mar last year and the experience was so freaking good (for both food and overall service) that we just had to go back and our second time around did not disappoint. In my humble opinion, they have the best seafood paella in the DC.

^^ A rare waterfront sunset view… I feel like, since I’ve become a mom, I haven’t had much time to pause and enjoy the sunset much. Like, not even time to look out from our living room window. So this was an unexpected but very much appreciated treat for our anniversary.

^^ Dumplings at Han Palace with my bro, Kris, and Ma. The fried taro dumplings were my favorite.

^^ My first postpartum entry back into the DC bar/lounge scene to celebrate my girl, Camesha’s birthday. True story, I had a bit of a breakdown prior to going out because none of my regular clothes fit. I ended up wearing a maternity top with jeans and sneakers feeling frumpy AF but after two jack and cokes and a great afro beats set by the DJ, your girl was bopping and the hips were loosening to the beat. Despite having moments of feeling guilty “I should be with my son not at a day party” thoughts, I’m glad I forced myself to go out. Luckily, Cam is also a mom so, after 3 hours of dancing, we all headed home around 6pm and I was in bed by 8 with Beau sleeping in my armpit. A perfect ending to the day.

^^ In all the times I’ve traveled to Maine since a kid, it’s always been by car or train. But Charles and I were not feeling the idea 12+ hours in the car (not including diaper change/food stops) with a 10 month Beau sooooo we booked an hour flight to Boston, picked up our car rental for the week and drove 4 hours to Maine instead. The added flight expense was sooooo worth the convenience and buy back of time.

^^ We lucked out with Beau falling asleep for the entire plane ride both to and from Maine. And Beau got to meet his GREAT Gramma. My beloved Grams. It was so important to me that they got to meet and spend time together.

^^ My Ma was also able to come along and enjoy the our time in Maine as well which was an added bonus. At some point, I’ll get around to a full photo dump of this experience but, in the meantime, this mini recap will do.

Unfortunately, a couple days after our we got back home, Beau had a fever which prompted me to schedule everyone to get Covid tests and we all tested positive including my Mom. We had been rapid testing before and throughout our time in Maine so I’m pretty sure we got it from the airport on our return flight. Worst symptoms included my chest feeling like it was burning and hacking up phlegm, Charles had a mild cough, my Mom had chills and Beau’s fever last a couple days. And then eventually, with rest and pedialyte support, we were all good. Grateful for vaccines and that we were able to get Beau his first shot before our trip. I honestly do believe our symptoms (esp. mine) would’ve been worse without it.

August ’22

^^ Ya’ll my sister, Ginelys (who goes by Giney or Gigi depending on how long you’ve been following this blog), turned 13 last August… THIRTEEN. wtf.

I was in constant mindspace of nostalgia during her birthday pool party. She was born when I was 22… Fresh out of college, living my dad’s basement, teaching dance part-time and babysitting her newborn self the other halftime. I’m very grateful that despite the big age-gap, we’ve maintained a pretty connected relationship over the years. It’s just so crazy to think of her as a teenager… Like, I took her to the mall to go bra shopping a couple weekends ago and the conversations we had were just so *mature*. Gah, time is flying.

^^ Enjoying my Ma’s famous homemade oxtail pho. She only brings this one out for special occasions which, in this case, was her birthday.

^^ My brother and I went in on a plane ticket to fly him in from Minnesota as her birthday present and she showed us her appreciation with pho. Food is her ultimate love language and I… I need to make time to hover over her shoulder and learn/write down all her ‘you need to watch because I don’t measure anything’ Cambodian recipes before she transitions to the west coast later this 2023 summer.

^^ August 29, 2022 my Beau turned ONE.

It was the hottest day of the month (96, super humid) and we booked an outside park shelter to mark the occasion lol. Shout out to all our family members who sweated alongside us in celebration.

^^ Luckily, we only planned to be outside for an hour and a half and also lucky that I remembered to bring Beau’s stroller fan which we attached to his high chair. We ate food, sang happy birthday, he had his cupcake and then everyone packed up to go home to some much needed A/C… We will definitely be celebrating his birthday indoors from now on unless it’s at the pool.

September ’22

^^ I kicked off the September with much needed hair chop. My hair had really thinned out postpartum and the long length just wasn’t working for me anymore.

^^ Me first legit photoshoot since 2019… Ahhhhhh, it felt so good to be creative in this way after such a long haitus. I was really proud of myself for scouting a great location and helping my model and friend, Katherine, put together her outfits to meet her portfolio goals. The two photos above are a few of my fave shots out of the bunch.

^^ And then a couple of days after my photoshoot, this happened.

I know… Such an anti-climatic announcement compared when I shared that I was pregnant with Beau in 2021 but, the truth is, finding out in real time was kinda anti-climatic as well. I literally woke up with a ‘feeling’, peed on the stick, walked out of the bathroom and showed it to Charles while he was changing Beau’s diaper… We nodded heads at each other and went about our day without talking about it until later that evening.

For background: it took us 13 months of trying before I finally became pregnant with Beau… So we figured we should start trying around Beau’s 1st birthday in anticipation of having issues with conceiving again that would delay us into 2023… But ya’ll, we got pregnant our first intentional try.

So yea, it honestly took a couple days to come to terms with the universe blessing us with a second child way faster than we expected. Like, I wasn’t ready for the reality of what it fully meant to me, especially as the childbearer, until I actually saw the results on the stick.

Sooooo yea… End of September was spent calling my gyno, setting up appts, praying for a healthy pregnancy and cherishing being just Beau’s mom for the time being.

That said, I do have a really great self portrait idea to commemorate being pregnant the second time around but I can’t fully execute it until Spring starts blooming. I do also have an alternative concept but it’s not calling to me as strong as my first idea so we’ll see how long my creative patience holds up.

Until then, I think I’m going to just share my prego updates on here (and maybe tumblr) until I decide I’m ready to share on the “social world”… which who knows when that might happen. I’m fully letting my gut instincts call the shots.

Q4 recap for 2022 coming later this week.

Until next post.

xo, Setarra

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