Advice

After battling stomach problems for years, Sarah Croessmann took action. On the advice of her doctor, she tried eating fewer fats, then removing dairy. Four years ago, she hit on a winner: She cut gluten from her diet. Croessmann, a 25-year-old Baltimore resident, is one of 1.6 million Americans on gluten-free diets who have not been diagnosed with celiac disease, according to a recent study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Celiac disease is triggered by the gluten found in wheat, barley, rye and possibly oats, which causes an autoimmune reaction and can lead to damage to the small intestine.

A brazen con artist received the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison yesterday for the 2006 murder of her boyfriend, after adding another bizarre chapter to a life of crime with a court appearance that included a last-ditch attempt to take back her guilty plea. Cynthia J. McKay, a 52-year-old mother of six, said a prison "epiphany" had convinced her to try to fight the charges - even though her son's release from jail was tied to her following through with her plea. When the judge turned down the request for a trial, McKay then said that she had stabbed her boyfriend during a fight.

Your first job as a Maryland electricity shopper is to sign up for a good deal at a good price. I'll remind you how to do so later in the column. Your second job is to make sure you don't get switched to a bad deal once the good deal expires. Thousands of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. households have taken one- or two-year contracts since electricity prices began falling a couple years ago. Now that many of the terms are coming to an end, inattentive consumers risk being rolled over to a lousy new rate.

In the first week of her reporting internship for a horse-racing newspaper, Gabby Gaudet nervously approached one of the most celebrated figures in the sport. "Can you tell me how you first got involved in the game?" she asked Kelly Breen, who trained the winner of the 2011 Belmont Stakes. "Terrible question. Get back to me when you think of a better one," he replied.  She flinched but thought fast. "How about if I ride your horse?" she asked. He said yes, they fell to talking, and the story she wrote ran above the fold in The Saratoga Special.

To Funlayo Alabi, Shea Radiance is much more than a business. It's a mission. Started in their Ellicott City home by Funlayo and her husband, Shola, Shea Radiance sells skin and hair products made from shea butter. Since the company's beginning eight years ago, business has doubled every year, and Shea Radiance products are now sold in hundreds of outlets, including some Target and Whole Foods stores. What makes the Columbia-based business more than a moneymaking venture, however, is that raw shea butter -- like Funlayo and Shola Alabi -- comes from West Africa, extracted from the nut of the African shea tree.

Horses? What horses? From the infield, the running of the Preakness Stakes is merely a side note - an excuse for tens of thousands to flood Pimlico and throw down all day. "I could probably name two horses a year, probably just the favorites," said Paul Sylvester, a 24-year-old engineer who went the past three years. "Most of the time you go, you're not really sure the race is on." More than 115,000 people came to last year's race, which made it the highest-attended sporting event in the state, officials said.

Stuart Janney III slipped into Churchill Downs virtually unnoticed Saturday afternoon, a few hours after landing in Lexington and driving to the track with his wife, two children and son-in-law. The northern Baltimore County resident, who had avoided the Kentucky Derby fanfare all week, soon found himself as the center of attention. Orb, owned by Janney and his cousin Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps, captured the 139th Kentucky Derby Saturday through the mud in 2:02.89 to win by 261/27 lengths.

Tattoos adorn the torso and arms of Ravens reserve cornerback Chris Johnson, covering his body in a mosaic of smiling faces and names. It's Johnson's way of paying tribute to his family, of ensuring that those loved ones remain close to his heart. "This way, they're always a part of you," Johnson said. "They're literally on your skin permanently, just like family is permanent to me. " On the left side of his ribs is a tattoo of a face and two numbers. The face is that of his sister, Jennifer Johnson.

It's a common refrain in Gia D'Anna's office: Extra inches that childbirth or time left around the middle are resisting diet and exercise. D'Anna is the office manager for a Lutherville plastic surgeon, and, as a mother, she sympathizes with the patients. She just got her own flat tummy back last year. Her boss, Dr. Ronald H. Schuster, had bought a machine that aimed to zap muffin tops and love handles via low temperatures. He was looking for volunteers on the staff before he rolled out the service to patients.

Sean O'Harra's furniture might be newly constructed, but there's nothing "new" about it. Walking through his workshop, a cavernous warehouse space on Reisterstown Road, O'Harra points to an enormous piece of wood, a cross-section of a maple tree trunk. "That is a tabletop," he explains. "It came out of a yard in Mount Washington and migrated to me. " The wood is rich brown, with prominent grain and an intricate, almost lacy, edge. It made its way to O'Harra via friends and friends of friends who knew he would appreciate it. He'll pair the wood with a metal base, balancing the maple's organic beauty with the cool modernity of metal.