Today is the day after my (more or less) weekly grocery store visit. Most of the time, that’s meaningless, really. Oh, most likely I will have fresh fruit in my yogurt, at least for a few days, and probably I will have some salad, but running out of fresh produce is generally the trigger for my next grocery store visit, so one way or another, I don’t think much about it.

Today, though, is different. I was away for a few days at the beginning of the year, on a fun little mini-vacation that included time with family & some delicious restaurant eating and when I came home on the 3rd, I was really tired. So I didn’t make it to the store on Saturday. On Sunday, I spent a big chunk of the day at Christina’s, playing games, eating her extremely delicious chili, and celebrating the new year with a fire in their fire pit, so I also didn’t make it to the store.

And then Monday through Wednesday, the construction project in front of my house meant that I couldn’t actually drive during the day. Yeah, that construction project — ugh. Every afternoon, they fill the holes back in, so people can drive on the roads during the night (and also maybe so they don’t kill themselves walking into big holes in the road in the dark?) And then in the morning, they dig the road up again and do more stuff with giant pipes and concrete monoliths.

People who don’t live here say, “When is it going to end?” People who do live here say, “OMG, is it ever going to end?”

Now, obviously, I could have gone out in the evening or in the early morning on any of those days, but I didn’t, because I still had food options. Some cabbage, canned beans, frozen chicken breast… I wasn’t starving by any means.

Yesterday, though, I went out early, over to Mount Dora to play with computers with my dad and stepmom, who are learning to use Macs. (In their 80s, and I really hope that should I make it to my 80s, I will still be enthusiastically learning the way they choose to.) On my way home, I stopped at the grocery store.

No big deal, nothing special, just… the grocery store.

But today has felt like a day of anticipation & abundance, with such potential for small pleasures. I bought a loaf of gluten-free bread ($8), some eggs ($6), some cheddar cheese ($5), and an avocado ($1), so now I’m getting to think about whether I want a) grilled cheese, b) French toast, c) avocado toast, 4) scrambled eggs with toast, 5) tea with toast and the cranberry-cinnamon jam I got at a Christmas market a few weeks ago. Such good choices! And it’s giving me so much pleasure to anticipate which of my delicious options I’ll be having for my lunch. For breakfast, I had yogurt with strawberries, supposedly in season now according to the sign, but definitely on sale; blueberries from a BOGO; and pistachios, also from a BOGO. Also delicious and I did my best to eat it mindfully, noticing how good it was with every bite.

But it really struck me what a perfect example of hedonic adaptation this is. How often do I take my groceries mostly for granted? How often do I spend more time worrying about prices and whether my choices are healthy than I do thinking about how delicious my meals are going to be? Honestly, most of the time. Anything familiar stops being a pleasure unless you really make an effort to break out of that hedonic adaptation — or unless something happens to break you out of it.

I’m not grateful for the construction project. But I’m grateful for the reminder that healthy food is not just fuel for our bodies, but an experience to savor & anticipate & appreciate.

I’m thinking grilled cheese.