When did you first feel like a grownup?

I remember that shortly after Ken and I bought our house, something broke and I called my dad for some advice.  His reply still makes me smile (and I have quoted it to many people since then):

"Welcome to the joys of home ownership!"

 It was odd not to be confidently calling the landlord and waiting for someone to come fix it.  Instead we were trying to decide who to call at the same time we were figuring out whether we could afford the repairs as well as debating who would stay home at which times to wait for the repairman.  I felt like a grown up then. 

I find it strange that graduating from college, getting married, getting a "real" job, and having kids didn't necessarily make me feel like a grown-up, but having a broken appliance did.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to one of my students talk about her dinner the previous night.  She said she had eaten plain noodles, because she really needed to go shopping and that was all she had left in her house. I was thinking that it's been a long time since I was down to "just noodles."  We go through three gallons of milk every week now! We always have certain things on hand: bread, milk, eggs, butter, etc.

Last night I had another "I'm a grown up" moment.  Because of a confluence of circumstances on Mondays, I am usually home for about 45 minutes with just Frances.  I usually use this time to get dinner started in relative peace.  I had already planned on making sandwiches, but the weather was a bit chilly and I decided to make some soup too.  I remember a recipe for tomato soup that Rosie had left on my post about finding new recipes.  I decided to go for it and was pleasantly surprised that we had most of the ingredients on hand without having planned it that way.

Tomato Basil Soup

• 1 onion
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 cube chicken bouillon
• two cups water
• three cans of whole tomatoes
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup of cream (this was the only thing I didn't have, so I used 1/3 cup of melted butter and enough milk to make 2 cups)
• basil (Frances doesn't like tomato soup, but she like tomato basil soup! Go figure!!)

Dice the onion and saute in butter.  Add bouillon cube and water along with tomatoes, sugar and baking soda.  Simmer for as long as it takes to empty the dishwasher and supervise homework (or an hour).  You can mash the tomatoes with a potato masher (slightly effective), an immersion blender (best choice/something I don't own) or a regular blender. I ended up blending it in two batches with my Ninja blender.  Add cream and basil.  Serve with grilled cheese sandwiches.

There's something having the ingredients to make something delicious and healthy in my pantry/refrigerator with no prior planning makes me feel like a grown up. How about  you? What makes you feel like a grown up?