lazy girl's shopping

Want them badly, but resisted [originally $255, on sale at J.Crew for $120]. Loving the bright colors but questioning their wearability?

The more practical version of my new lust, still only $120:

Took the plunge and bought this one for $130 at the JC sale [originally $180]. Not the best deal around and it's strapless, which normally isn't me....but I'm a sucker for the 'Juliet' gown. Maybe because the 'wild peony' color is hawt. I'll wear it for wedding #2 quite possibly with gold heels just to get the full effect:

Stalking this one on Ebay, the Janey....in my size, in the spiced wine color perfect for a fall wedding, for only $40 right now! I smell a deal for wedding #3 and it's not black or brown [hooray] :)
So thoughts on the shoes? I don't like to be matchy-matchy with my heels but I wouldn't want the orange/pink ones to clash either. I considered wearing them with a chocolate dress to bring out the warmth? I wouldn't want to wear them with a pink dress because that would be too much. I know the purple/black ones would go with a black dress but that isn't much fun, is it? I overanalyze like it's my job, you know.

Busy as a Bee

One of the reasons my posts have diminished lately: album design, and lots of it. This is the type of busy that I adore so you won't hear me complain, but I'd like to share one of the albums with you now. I will show the other two later so stay tuned:)

This client found me through the wonderful world of blogging and she just so happens to be a Milwaukee girl [my first!]. Briena's photographer was Kim at KB Image Photography, who is obviously talented. Not only is she a great photographer but she boosted my confidence a bit as well. When I contacted her to get consent for displaying her images, Kim gave me some valuable advice. She informed me that I am "vastly underpriced for my talent" and urged me to raise my prices to get compensated for the many hours of hard work I put into each design. Did I mention that she is wise?

In reality, I've started with low prices for a reason----to gain clients and get my business off to a good start. I'm pleased with the beginnings of J.Lorene Design and I'm considering taking Kim's advice. After all, each album can take me anywhere from 13 hours up to 18 hours of my free time in the evenings and on weekends, which means I've made about $5/hour on some of the albums:) Pretty pathetic but then again, this company is a labor of love for me---I truly enjoy every minute spent at the computer, so being compensated for my time is a bonus. Perhaps it's time I shoot for a whopping $8/hour! :)

Anyway, let's get on to the beautimous design, shall we? This is Briena---a stunning bride, married back in 2006, in an uber-cool gallery wedding [a woman after my own heart!]. As soon as I saw her images I knew this would be a fun album for me....I'm a sucker for contemporary weddings filled with beautiful emotions.

Here are a few of my favorite layouts for Briena, click on the images to make them bigger:










As you can see, my style has really progressed since creating my first album [ours!]. I'm obsessed with the faded out stripes and unique arrangements of the photos---to the point where I want to re-do our wedding album!

To see Briena's album in full, go to my website and click the 'examples' tab. Hope you enjoyed as much as I did!

Brew Crew

On Friday night we attended our first Brewers game of the season. Because they are doing pretty well this year, it's a little bit harder to get tickets and the last 19 games have been sell outs! Go Brewers!

You have to admit that this is a pimp stadium....retractable roof and all.

Look who I found: Bernie Brewer.

What a perfect night for a baseball game, complete with a cold beer and good company.

Our bleacher seats were pretty awesome except for all of the random drunkards falling over and screaming obscenities during the game. Eh, I guess that is to be expected.
The best part of the whole night: the sausage races! For those of you non-Milwaukeeans, we have an Italian sausage, Hot Dog, Chorizo, Bratwurst, and Polish sausage. I totally wanted the Italian to win and Nate voted for the hot dog.
Freaking Chorizo blew the rest of the sausages out of the water!

We sat right under Bernie Brewer's slide and he poked his head out at us a few times. Isn't he a doll?
The Brewers won and we had lots of fun. My only complaint was I was tired from running 18 miles that morning so the game seemed to last forever. I had to entertain myself a little bit and came up with my new favorite question: If you were a professional baseball player, which song would you choose for the 'at bat' song?

Some of the Brewers chose hard core rap songs and some chose country tunes. I think I would start out with Nelly's 'Batter Up' because I'm tough like that. Nate couldn't commit for his choice but I decided that he'd use Nelly's 'Pimp Juice' for a starter.

Which song would you choose? I know it's a hard decision but just try:)

Wedding #1

Mike is Nate's cousin and he married Michelle on Saturday in Madison, WI. It was the first of three weddings for us this fall and it totally lived up to the hype. Did I mention that I love weddings? Cause I do.

Nate's little brother Jon and his girlfriend Emily came down from Duluth, Minnesota for the wedding. We always have fun with them and we clean up nicely if I do say so myself. Note the Banana Republic dress purchased from Ebay last year for a steal:


For graduation, Jon got a brand new Honda Element in orange. He is quite fond of it to say the least so I made them pose in front of the car for the blog. They loved it:)

The bride and groom during the short but sweet Catholic ceremony. We were fully expecting the hour long mass but they condensed it down to a perfect 30 minutes. Way to go, guys!

Over at the reception I snapped some pictures of the flowers because I know other girls love these details as much as me. Aren't they pretty?

Nate and Jon at dinner. I swear they are looking more and more alike over the years [but as Jon likes to point out, he still has his hair].

We are kind of starting to look alike, too.....but again, I still have my hair as well:)

The grand entrance. They are so happy!

Me and the beautiful bride. Michelle is a bundle of energy and always the life of the party. I'm so happy to have her in our family officially because now we get to share the same [hard to pronounce] last name!

Cutting the cake and showing off her pretty bustle.
Mike and Michelle attended our wedding last year, where the Browers debuted their Studio B photo booth. When they left our wedding, they said they were going to start their own photo booth business because it was such a hit. Sure enough, they started Beyond the Booth and have been doing really well with it across Wisconsin----but since they couldn't run their own booth on their wedding day, Nate and I offered to do it for them. I was a little nervous because we never had a chance to see the program before the wedding but we figured it out somehow and it was a total blast. We are up to no good, as you can see.


Here is our first test shot:

This is a mix between 'raise the roof' and 'muscle woman'---and somehow I look a little deranged.

We finally got our moment in the spotlight and had to think fast for our poses. We should have practiced before but we didn't--spontaneous poses are key:)

Again, not sure why muscles were the theme of the night.
The four of us. Nobody told me we were being serious in the first shot.

The bride and groom are too cute!

Nate decided that he needed to stretch in the middle of the reception. Marathon training really does affect all aspects of your life, I suppose.


I like when we dress up because then I can take lots of pretty pictures.

Mike and Michelle were such a fun couple all day long. I think it's safe to say they had an amazing wedding day and I hope the honeymoon to Cabo is amazing!

Sparkler send off at the end of the night.

Yay, Mike and Michelle!
It was a fabulous day and tons of fun. One wedding down, two more to go!

Dieciocho

That means 18 for you non-Spanish speakers out there:) I ran 18 miles today and I didn't even die. Sure, I came close a few times and my feet sounded like hammers on the pavement by the end but I finished---in freaking 2:46:00---which is a 9:16 mile average! This goes down in history as both the longest run I've ever done and probably the fastest, too.

I found a new running partner named Krista who is basically a badass. She's the crazy one who ran two half marathons and a full last spring and is planning on another full and half this fall. She also hasn't run more than 8 miles all summer and managed to bang out 18 like it was nothing. Me on the other hand? I've been training all summer long like it is my job and I was struggling on this run.

We stopped 4 times to stretch, drink, and eat and we stopped the clock on those breaks---which may or may not be cheating? I forced us to walk a half of a mile at 15 to regain composure but other than that it was pretty flipping fabulous to complete such a daunting run. It was full of lots of good conversation which I'm finding helps a whole lot on the longer runs. Who knew? :)

And now, dear readers, I feel that you need a dose of harsh reality: Running isn't all puppy dogs and rainbows. In fact, it's nearly impossible to be a foot model while training for a marathon as evidenced by my hideous feet right now. I have developed some wicked blisters on the tips of my toes [weird! and kind of freaky] that deserve their moment in the spotlight.

Here are my feet right after a run. Please look closely at my third toes on each foot. And yes, that is a tattoo on my big toe--it fades out after a run, but it's a star with an arrow going through it:

So then on Rightie there is this monster:

I'm pretty sure it's a bad thing when the blister goes underneath my toenail, right? I've heard horror stories about runners losing their toenails and I don't want that to be me! It hurts like a little biyatch, too.

Then Leftie is sporting this sucker:

This one has gone down a bit and is now more of a callous but it's still painful. It's just not as frightening as Rightie's new addition.

I'm sure these bad boys have something to do with my new shoes but also... once you start running for nearly three hours something has to give, right? I just hope they don't get much worse or I might have to get brave with a needle [I love that stuff, you know]. I thought the other runners out there might appreciate the dirty details of training:)

So now the rest of my weekend is fabulously full: I'm off all day today since I worked on Sunday. Today I get a massage that I've been putting off for far too long. Then we are going to the Brewers game tonight and I cannot wait for the sausage races and a nice cold beer. Tomorrow we are going to Madison for a wedding all day long [squeeee!] and then Sunday Nate is leaving me for Minnesota where he'll visit a friend until Tuesday. Lots of pictures to follow for sure and I promise no more blister pictures [for now at least].