Olá! Eu gosto de batatas. (Hello! I like potatoes.) There you have it, folks! The only Portuguese I know by heart — even though I’ve known Vagner for nearly a decade. (Any Portuguese you see in this blog post is courtesy of him — bless his heart.) Thankfully, food is a universal language, and Vagner has shown me the wonders of Brazilian food in the years since we’ve started dating. I’m a very picky eater, so I was pleasantly surprised when I first ate with his family and loved everything!

Naturally, we were both thrilled when Terra Gaucha Tampa invited us to try their menu in celebration of Vagner’s birthday! It’s become a bit of a tradition for us to visit a rodizio restaurant every year, and I was thrilled to learn that we had a new option in Tampa. If you’ve never been to a Brazilian steakhouse, you’re in for a treat. Calling it an all-you-can-eat restaurant is a bit of an undersell. It is an experience.

If you ask me where we should eat lunch, I’m going to tell you to find an aesthetically pleasing place with a lot of natural light. (I never claimed to be an easy date, okay?) There’s so much debate about whether visiting a place solely for Instagram is a vapid thing to do, but I’m firmly in the “live and let live” camp. Even if you visit a restaurant or store because it looks great on the ‘gram, you’ll likely find something you love about it — which is one of my favorite things about blogging.

We made it to Monday, friends! I know — I have it all backwards. But we’re supposed to be thankful for every day, not just Fridays, right?! I’m glad I survived the weekend and have a week filled with potential ahead. I may just be over-caffeinated, but I’m believing this week will be GOOD. 

I’ve had this post sitting in drafts for a while, and I didn’t really know what to do with it because it is SO random and my posts are usually laid out well. But I want to use my blog to actually ramble about my life, even as things become more structured + this isn’t a place where I word vomit all the time! Who knows if I’ll ever do another Monday Musings post, but I figured I’d give it a try! Let’s get going.

My smile is one of the things I’ve never really been super self-conscious about — thanks to my mom and dad paying for braces when I was a little girl, I’m actually pretty keen on my teeth. (Hilariously, Vagner has a tooth gap and I think it’s the cutest thing in the world and kind of miss mine.)

Even though I love my smile, I’m always sipping drinks that have the potential my teeth. I can’t ever give up Diet Coke or coffee, and I’m not mad about it — but because I love dark-colored drinks, I’ve thought about teeth whitening for a while. I’m so excited to partner with Smile Brilliant for today’s post!