Well, I'm a homemaker for the day, while Elizabeth is off at a class for work (which she somewhat sadly returns to on Tuesday, after a nice maternity break), so it's just the boys here at home! Break out the brews and the chicken wings. Oh, and the breastmilk and the pacifiers...

The youngster is sleeping right now, after my attempt to get him to eat some rice cereal (he's learned how to spit it into the air and onto his dad's glasses -- what a trick!), so I just wanted to do a quick breakdown of the odds and ends I've been meaning to write about for a while. Soon as he wakes up we're going to go for a hike or take Whit to the dog park, depending on the temps outside. Fun times!
So, the quick and dirty version of the latest news here at Casa Jasper:

• We finalized everything on our house refinancing yesterday, which cuts our monthly mortgage payment by about $275 a month! Sweet. Most of that $4,400 a year will be going to get us out of debt. That's a good thing. We've been carrying a balance on the credit card and home equity line of credit WAY too long. And there's that whole student loan thing...
  
• I'm crazy, but I picked my Tar Heels to go all the way this year for the NCAA tournament. They about killed me last weekend, looking like crapola as they played in the ACC tournament, losing to a so-so Georgia Tech team. I think Coach Williams will get their heads screwed on straight for this tourney.
  
• I went to the closest Barnes and Noble yesterday to show off my and Greg's story in the latest Asimov's to some friends after lunch, but the place still had the freakin' February issue on display. "They take a long time to get here," the magazine guy said. Gosh! (Sorry -- watched "Napoleon Dynamite" again this week.)
  
• According the the Death Clock, I've got almost five decades left -- I kick the bucket on Monday, May 5, 2053. Now, if I lose 30 pounds, I get another ten years. If I lose more than that, I don't really get much more time (of course, all of this is based on the totally flawed Body Mass Index, or BMI, which assumes you're a fat blob if you're 6'1" and don't weigh 185 pounds, a weight I ain't seen since high school! But I am cutting out snacking and walking more, and doing 25 pushups and 25 situps before I can get my first and the next cup of coffee in the morning...
  
• Speaking of coffee, I got up early again today to get some writing done, and finished the first 1/3 of my mini-epic! It's rolling along now, and I may just stay up late tonight (if I have any energy after today) and finish it up -- I sort of know how it ends, and of course I had a nice way to set up the next set of mini-epics with the ending to this one... Because the only thing better than a mini-epic is a series of 'em!
  
• And once I'm done with that tale, I'm dying to dive into the baseball novel revisions again -- I figured out the key to making it really work was the weird centerfielder character, Mack. So now I'm retrofitting more weirdness with him, including more of his strange predictions and ulterior motives and glittery eyes.
• Finally, check out Drew's latest photo album, featuring Drew chilling with Whit, and doing his new display of rolling over! Lizzie called me yesterday to say he was doing it, all on his own. And he's barely three months old. Crazy! He'll be crawling next.

And that's the latest. Drew's really exhausted (he had a rough week, with his teething and stomach troubles adjusting to the cereal and Mom and Dad stressing each other out about daycare!) -- he's slept for a good hour this morning. Now I'm itching to take him outside and hit the road. But first, this homemaker has to change the laundry and make a grocery list! Later...