Ninja Monkey vs Exploding Glass

I started my quest to have completely unique jewelry creations today by taking my very first warm glass class at Glass Axis. It was great, I really enjoyed the class. The torch was a little intimidating but fire is always fun so I quickly got over it and started playing with the glass.

The instructor shows us the first bead demo and gives us pretty simple instructions to follow. We all move back to our own stations and begin. I make a gigantic bead which I think looks alright. I go to add dots to it and it explodes. Well, I guess that can happen. I move on to round two. I work up a pretty good sized bead that looks really nice. It is deep blue and tear drop shaped. The instructor tells me I need to heat it up so I can add the detail and again it explodes. I decided maybe I should not be attempting such lofty goals on my first day and shoot for just creating some good old fashioned beads.

I ended up with eight beads total, I worked out how to make some cool shapes. I also figured out how you can use different temperatures change with the coloring of some glass. I ended up making one bead that looks like gray flourite so that was pretty cool. I have a long way to go before I will feel comfortable using of my handmade beads in pieces for sale in my store but I am really excited to learn and practice!

The instructor gave me the bead that he made during the first demo, one day I think I will be able to make one that won't explode and shoot glass shards all over the studio. Until then...this ninja monkey is going to be playing with way more fire.

Ninja Monkey vs. Busy Times

I am sorry to my poor blog and to my friends who keep yelling at me to blog. Illness, cute new family members, work, drifting between residences, job changes, house hunting with my boyfriend and wedding planning for my best friend have been occupying all of my time. I will get more of the good old fashioned Ninja Monkey humor rolling again soon.

My desk will be set up again soon with my own computer and everything so watch out Internet cause this ninja's about to go crazy on you. You won't even know what happened, don't believe me? Ask Orion...one day you will be relaxing in front of the television or hanging out with a good book and then you will be all like hey what was that? By the time you feel the throwing stars in your back or the punch to the top of the head it will be much to late. You will have been ninja owned, ninja owned indeed my friend. As one of my favorite ninjas, Robin of Loxley, would say Ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You love me, no really you do.

Now to go get my coffee on! Ninjas are useless without caffeine.

Ninja Monkey vs. Alzheimer's

Please help me to raise money for the Alzheimer's Foundation. I will be participating in the 2009 Memory Walk. There is no minimum donation, give what you can and help me raise money for a great cause!

Go to this address: https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=300005&supId=257312968

Participant Name: Brandi Eckelberry

If you are interested in walking or joining our team let me know and I will send you the information.

Thank you for your support!

:) Brandi

Ninja Monkey vs. Funny Doctors

I have managed to injure myself again. While walking last Thursday I managed to tear a few ligaments and stretch my nerves in my right foot/ankle. Immediately after this happened my foot went numb and felt like it was chilling in a bucket of ice. I went to the ER where I met a nice older doctor who decided that my foot was too weird to diagnose and sent me home with crutches and said go see your foot specialist as soon as possible.

I saw my foot specialist this morning. He helped me with a previous injury to my FHL tendon. If anything is ever wrong with my foot I will only see him. I was bounced from specialist to specialist a few years ago and no one could figure out what was causing all of the pain I was experiencing. Within minutes he diagnosed my problem and worked with me to eventually fix my FHL tendon. I did have to cut the other doctors some slack though, since the injury I somehow developed is only seen in ballerinas and I am no ballerina. I promise.

My foot doctor checked me out today and said no more crutches but put me in a very sexy boot that I must wear for an undetermined amount of time. I wish that it was more of a cowboy boot but c'est la vie.
I was thinking about a few of the things that doctors have been saying to me lately and decided to jot them down.

"Your foot looks weird"

"Your foot is puzzling"

"In 31 years I have never seen or heard of that injury before"

and my favorite from today's appointment...

"Your foot is a wonderful mystery to me"

I guess that if anything I keep these guys on their toes. I just wish I did not leave every doctor visit lately feeling like no one knows what is wrong or what to do with me. My ear nose and throat doctor said "you are the exception to the rule I'm afraid" a few weeks ago after trying to treat my migraines and failing miserably and I am still waiting to see the next specialist for that problem.

My foot man said today that he is writing down that I have a severe sprain and nerve damage but said that it was a cop out because that is probably not what is going on in my foot but he needs more information before he can try to figure it out.

I guess I will keep on trucking and hope that they get me sorted out. I hope to one day go for at least one whole week without seeing a doctor. It would also be nice to get a diagnosis from a single physician. I am tired of being bounced from specialist to specialist.

Good night gentle readers. I am off to my bedroom.

Please send me your favorite books and movies to keep me occupied at night when I am stuck in bed with my foot up for the next couple weeks. Tonight I plan on watching one of these...

I have not decided which one yet. I will also be working on some song writing, they might be a bit rough since I am stuck in bed and on pain meds but maybe, just maybe, I will produce some musical gold.

With great boredom comes a great amount of blogging...stay tuned :)

Ninja Monkey vs School

So after many, many, many, years I have finally decided what i want to be when I grow up or at least what I want to study.

A little over ten years ago I started up at Capital University with a double major in Music Education and Performance. After a couple quarters, passing out randomly, being verbally abused by certain teachers, and dropping to an all time low weight of 90 pounds I decided that this was not the program for me. I transferred to Ohio State to study Archaeology.

Overall, things greatly improved. I gained back all the weight, stopped passing out I lost which my doctor blames on stress and I was enjoying my classes. I missed the smaller sized classes at Capital. I enjoyed the large campus and student population of OSU, at Capital it seemed like I was still in high school. One of my professors even called my mom once because I missed class. It was funny though because I was having a 8 hour blood sugar test done which I informed all of my teachers of beforehand and brought home assignments from some of them to work on while I was off campus. I guess he did not believe me. Things were going alright until I was so sick with sinus infections that I could not leave a dark, quite room without suffering terrible migraines. My doctor decided to put me on some narcotics, steroids and antibiotics for about a year. This made me feel absolutely awful and I had to take a leave of absence from school.

After all of that calmed down and started up again, and calmed down and flared up, I had sinus surgery. Somehow all of these medical bills piled up and those pesky student loan deferment periods ended and suddenly I had a small fortune to pay back, and was forced to go to work full time and keep school on hold. Ten years later I realized how much I regretted putting school on hold for so long. I have also decided that I would like to start a whole new avenue of learning.

I was browsing the course offerings of some of my area colleges and found ironically that Capital's Conservatory of Music has what I am looking for, a BA in Music Technology! I am excited to get this rolling. Wish me luck in my new endeavor!

And the Winner Is....

Meredith B is our lucky ducky. Her favorite item was Purple Cowgirl!

Congrats Meredith! Hopefully, Meredith will send me some photos modeling her See Monkey Bead jewelry so I can post them for everyone to see! You can also check out Meredith's blog at http://allofmypurplelife.blogspot.com

Thank you to everyone for participating and for the birthday wishes!

Ninja Monkey vs Birthday GIVE AWAY

In honor of my birthday tomorrow, I will be giving away one piece of jewelry (up to $25.00) from my Etsy shop.

Here are the rules:

You must visit my shop and then come back to my blog and leave a comment on this post with the name of your favorite item by midnight EST on my birthday (April 30th) . I will choose the winner on Friday May 1st by using a random number generator. I will post the lucky ducky Friday evening.


Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday Ninja Monkey, Happy birthday to me!

Now for a birthday mojito...yum yum Y-U-M!!!!