Jacob and I go grocery shopping together once a week, very early on weekend mornings.

Usually, this occurs on Saturday. He leaves his house before his kids wake up and swings by my apartment to pick me up. I am ready to go with my travel coffee cup and reusable bags. We go to two grocery stores. The first is a small, slightly grubby local grocer with an amazing bakery section and from there we head to Trader Joe's. We aim to get there around 8:30am. There’s an early morning sweet spot between the 1st wave of customers, the ones who were waiting in the parking lot when they unlock the doors, and the 9:00 AM rush. The first thing we do is stop at the flower section. We pause and admire them, taking note of whichever lovelies catch our eye. Once we've found the perfect bunch, we place the little beauties in our cart and move on.

We section off the cart, me placing my fewer items in the top of the cart and he fills up the larger bottom. There is a difference in how a single person shops and how someone shopping for a family does, I’ve noticed. Jacob does a lot of meal planning and he uses a shopping list. I tend to eat a lot of the same foods and am prone to impulse purchases. Lots of bagged salads, random condiments, and sparkling water in the top of the cart.

I just love our grocery store dates. It’s really the only time that I can consistently count on it being “just us” during the weekends as they tend to be chocked full of activity and humans.

When he drops me off at my apartment, he carries my bags in for me and then ceremoniously presents me with the flowers we so carefully picked out together earlier. We both pretend that it’s the first time I’ve seen them and like I didn’t already know they were for me. It’s a sweet, little rhythm and I look forward to it so much. It really is the little things.