What's going on with Barb?

What I'm reading: Pythagoras' Trousers: God, Physics and the Gender Wars by Margaret Wertheim. Margaret Wertheim is the science writer who, with her twin sister, began the "Beautiful math of coral and crochet" project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGEDHMF4rLI Pythagoras' Trousers attempts, in 250 pages, to give a history of the link between physics and religion over the last 1000 years.

What I'm writing: I just sent Spinning Coins to its first potential agent. This particular agent (Adams Literary) takes e-mail submissions of the entire manuscript, and tries to give a 3-4 month turnaround on responses, which is faster than other agents. They are Margaret Peterson Haddix' agent. Amy and I just finished reading her Just Ella and its sequel, Palace of Mirrors, which have put Amy into a "feminist princess" kick :) . She also wrote Running Out of Time and The Shadow Children books, which Doug and Carrie loved when they were younger.

I'm doing research for a sequel to Spinning Coins. In the sequel Polly will be in Paris at the University, where in actual history John Calvin and Saint Francis Xavier were students at the time (late 1526, early 1527.) She'll meet Marguerite de Navarre, and travel with her through France.

What I'm knitting: I'm still working on Doug's college afghan. I've finished the front face of the Fibonacci cube, and started on the side. (It will look 3D because of the various shades of gray mixed in with the red and yellow.) I've also done one of the Terp (turtle) corners, and started on knitting a tone-on-tone MARYLAND to go across the bottom.


How I'm feeling: The Hopkins cardiologist I met with last month does not recommend doing a PFO closure in my case. He doesn't think it will help. He did recommend the book Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Plan For Taking Charge of Your Pain, by neurologist David Buchholz. Buchholz recommends eliminating ALL potential migraine triggers. He says that just because chocolate, for instance, doesn't always seem to give you a migraine doesn't mean it isn't a trigger for you. Every person has a point at which the ACCUMULATION of triggers will cause a migraine, and it could be that one day chocolate puts you over the limit and another day it doesn't. Apparently my trigger point is very low, since I have migraines daily.

In the last month I've been following his diet (no caffeine, no artificial sweeteners, no nuts, no aged cheese...the list goes on), and have also gone off rescue meds such as Imitrex and Excedrin Migraine in an attempt to eliminate rebound headaches. (I did use Imitrex shots for 3 days during the family reunion; otherwise I wouldn't have been able to participate.) The result? I still have the daily migraines, but generally less severe and with some time migraine FREE (not even the edge of a migraine, as before.) I also feel more clear-headed. I'm going to stick with this, in the hopes that I continue to improve.

What else is going on?
- We just celebrated my grandparents' 75th anniversary! My mom threw a wonderful party with about 60 guests.
- Doug graduated from high school, and is excited about going to Maryland in the fall. He's lifeguarding this summer, and just took a pool operators class.
- Carrie just turned 16. To celebrate her SWEET 16, Doug (almost 18) took her to Hershey Park. (Get it? Sweet?) She leaves for London with Peabody Children's Chorus on July 3rd.
- 9yo Amy auditioned for the Peabody Children's Chorus, and was placed in the Choristers (the 2nd level). I'm VERY proud! She's keeping busy with swim team this summer.