Visiting the King!

A few weeks ago I visited the King! Yep, Elvis, the King! As an old Elvis fan I have for years wanted to visit Graceland, the Elvis Museum in the City of Randers. It is the greastest Elvis collection housed in a copy of the real Graceland, Elvis' house. I got a hotel gift card from my company and then we simply had to go.

Here I am at the entrance, the gates are true copies of Elvis' own entrance to Graceland:

And here I stand with the King:

Elvis was 184 cm tall, so he is almost 20 cm taller than me. I didn't know he was that tall.

And here I am in front of the copy of Graceland, it is very well made:

The owner has collected the most incredible things. I am so impressed that a Danish man has so many items. Here is the master tape from a jam-session with Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis:

It's really crazy! You can read more about the session here.

The crown juvel in his collection is this white leather suit, that has cost him about 200,000 dollars:

One of his new acquisitions is Elvis' secret phone from The Jungle Room, camouflaged as a cigar box:

And he has both dolls from the movie G.I. Blues, where  Elvis sings Muss i Denn:

Elvis' jools and a very modern digital watch:

The most valuable record in the world, and no singing, it is a two minutes long interview:

As he writes "Good luck in your quest for one!".

I had to buy a souvenir with me and choose this little vinyl collection: Six singles Elvis published from Sun Records, which was his first record agency, and they are blue:

If you are in Denmark and are just a bit fascinated by Elvis, you have to visit Graceland - you also eat very well in the American restaurant.

Monroe Monday

Not a Dull Mum

Son was out to buy a Christmas gift for me. He wanted to buy the OPI nail polish The Man with the Golden, but unfortunately it was sold out, so he talked with the saleswoman. She showed him another, as son expressed it "poo-Bordeaux-coloured", polish and recommended it for his mum, since she loved it herself. "My mum is not THAT dull!", he said dryly. He is my boy! :)

Instead he picked this lovely deep purple OPI Tomorrow Never Dies:

He thought I didn't have a colour like it, and he was right!

I also got this lovely mini collection from OPI:

They are all far from "poo-Bordeaux-coloured".

Monroe Monday

Under Cover Nails

I've tried a new nail trend, or new and new, I don't know. It is about six months ago I saw it for the first time. I thought it was a strange idea, that it would not get noticed and that it would be difficult to remove. But you cannot have and opinion without having tried it, so I did:

The polish is an Indie brand from Etsy.com, and I have painted the same blue colour as one of the glitter colours with a small pencil under the nails. And yes, there were only a few from my job who noticed and yes, it was truly difficult to remove. I'm not going to do this again.

Monroe Monday

Christmas at Wismar

The second weekend in December DH invited me to a trip to Wismar in Germany. I love Germany at Christmas, because they really know how to celebrate Christmas. So a short holiday from our daily life and an overdose of Christmas is just what I needed. Wismar is a lovely little city, which we visited in my vintage Opel GT a summer a few years ago. And it is also lovely in December. Here are some photos from our trip.

Have you ever seen TWO white brides in front of the city hall? I hadn't and I thought they were so beautiful that I took their picture. They had tiny bridesmaids and both had incorporated something red on their dresses to celebrate Christmas:

A window with lots of Christmas:

Beautiful view from the harbour, it almost looks like a painting:

A very nice and very different downpipe:

A young accordion orchestra played Christmas music in a little shopping center near our hotel:

And the weather was in a Christmas mood too, I LOVE snow:

I shopped a little although my shopping gene has faded a bit. Here is a pair of wonderful shoes with grey "diamonds" all over and clutches of icicles at the toe and on top of the heel:

They cost a fortune of 16 dollars, because only size 6 was left, my luck. I will wear them on both Christmas and New Years Eve.

I also bought two pairs of boots. I'm not that fond of boots, but the short pair cost about 34 dollars and later I found the long ones in a second hand shop - brand new - and at 13 dollars. I could not afford letting them go:

When I woke up Sunday morning, this fellow greeted me with two nail polishes. He was my advent gift from DH:

And I bought these polishes:

The pool blue glitter is very beautiful, the purple glitter is a crack polish, the red one is from Color Club named "Ruby Slippers", and the black one is from Essence about two dollars. Essence makes really good polishes, so I also bought four clear polishes which I use as topcoat.

And I got this early Christmas gift from DH, a beautiful snake watch:

I saw it at the hotel and I loved how consistent it is, even the hands are formed like snakes.

Now I will wish for a short spring holiday.

Monroe Monday

Looking Back at 2012

Last year I said goodbye to a bad year, and promised myself that 2012 would be a good year. Not that I believe that such promises work, but some says that what you send out comes back to you, and one can always hope. How was 2012 then? Well, it was not exactly a bad year, like last year, but it wasn't fantastic either. I suppose a mix of it all. That's how life is - isn't it?

Both son and I have got new jobs. Well, I know, I have forgotten to mention it here on my blog. It also came as a surprise to me. My company was merged with another company and then three in my company and four from the other was fired. Halleluja, and away she went. Before I got fired my great boss suddenly started behaving strange, so it was good I had to move on, because she wasn't good for me. Ten minutes after I had called a friend from the trade I got a call from my company's largest competitor's CEO and I was hired on the spot. HA! I already feel better. We are still extremely busy and I balance on a thin line of a stress breakdown all the time, but I have lovely colleagues and have just got a new great boss, so I cross my fingers and hope it will be good.

Son has been through some really bad things at his apprenticeship as a landscape gardener, so bad that we had to break his contract. I will not go into details here, but it was bad. Now he continues his apprenticeship at the gardener school and he likes it so far. Now he is the skilled one and the other trainees call him "master". It has build up his self-confidence. He has also found a new apprenticeship at an old and wellreputed company where he will start at spring. So we hope everything will be good, because he deserves it.

We visited Florida in February, and it was big and very different and very expensive, so I don't think we will go there soon again, unfortunately. The best things was meeting my penpal through many years, and experience son when we met Doc and saw the Delorian from Back to the Future at  Universal.

Besides that - no broken legs, bad operations or other illnesses, so all in all everything is quite good. DH and I still love each other and son dances around spontaniously even if he is just making himself lunch. So basis is OK.

Happy New Year to you all - I hope 2013 will be a fantastic year for all of us.

No, it is not Marilyn who drinks with us. It is Jayne Mansfield who was among the leading bombshells in the fifties.