End of Summer Fun

During a run last week, I officially saw leaves that had fallen off the trees. Summer is over. And I have to admit, I'm kind of sad.

Let me say this: I do absolutely LOVE fall. I love going to the apple orchard. I love the cooler weather. I love getting fall soaps and candles. I love that Luke gets all excited about football season and I get excited about making chili for him while he watches football, but then I only end up making it once.

But I just really enjoyed the summer, and so to preserve it for just a few minutes longer, I'm just rolling out some of the fun things that went on in August, which is by far my favorite month of the year. Here they are, in number order, just because I'm feeling chatty and because I like photo collages.

1. We took our annual anniversary photo on the docks in Saugatuck, Michigan.

Each year, this involves us asking some poor person just enjoying a walk on the docks to take a  picture of us, which I will promptly decide I don't like as much as the selfie we took two minutes before (except for year 2012, and that's only because my phone was stolen that had the selfie on it :)).

2. We stayed at our favorite B&B yet in Saugatuck - the Bellvedre Inn (it was Luke's pick this year and he totally wins). 

This place was so cool. It had a restaurant inside so we got a free 4-course meal with our stay. I had lobster tail and I'm not sorry.

3. We went to our first White Sox game.

At a Tigers game I at least know some of the players. I knew none at this game, but I enjoyed the conversation and the stadium's famous corn. 

4. We got to see the best friend and her man, and eat some of the best ice cream in Chicago.

This is my home when I come to Chicago. The last time I visited we watched a late night (who am I kidding? it was probably 10 PM) PBS special on ice cream shops. This time we went to a pretty darn good one. 

5. We went to the St. Louis Zoo.

This zoo is beautiful, y'all. And free. And my husband had a butterfly land on him in the butterfly house and he became a bit of an attraction in and of himself (seriously, people stopped to take pictures). 

6. We visited the Arch. 

The only bad thing about visiting the Arch was that there was a snake in the grass that my husband jokingly threatened to throw at me. I (not so jokingly) threatened to leave him if he did. (WE ARE STILL MARRIED, HUZZAH!)

7. We rode around the streets of St. Louis in a Cinderella Carriage (don't be jealous). 

At first we were like, "hmmm....I wonder how much for a normal carriage ride?" And then we saw the Cinderella Carriage. I commend the men for dealing with this whole situation pretty well. 

8. I traveled down to Tennessee to see the BFFs. 

We got to visit our old college and play with Rachael's little girl and run together and cry and laugh and it was the best time. It was a last minute trip that I am so so glad I made. 

Oh, man. My heart is full after this August. Luke and I have said several times that this was just a really good summer, and we are thankful. 

Thanks for reading. Sometimes it's just nice to document some memories here and I'm grateful that you stopped by. :) 

Team World Vision Postcards

Happy FRIIIIII-DAAAAYYY (said like Oprah). 

So, I'm trying to knock out some blog posts on these side projects that I've been doing this summer. I'll be back next week with more (a save the date and a baby shower invite, to be exact), but for now I just wanted to show off a personal project of mine. 

As I've mentioned before, this is the year of the marathon. Which means that the following things are now common in my life:

1. Going to bed at 8 PM on Friday nights in preparation for 6 AM group runs on Saturday mornings (my husband is so pleased). 

2. Thinking I can eat everything in sight because I'm running (thus, I have lost 0 pounds even though we're up to running 10+ miles on the weekends). 

3. Bumming everyone out on every vacation I've taken this summer because I'm like, "oh, by the way, RUN WITH ME."

Overall though, training has been going well so far, meaning that I haven't had any injuries and I've managed to complete each run on my training schedule without dying. But tomorrow is my longest run yet (and I mean my longest run ever) at 15 miles. And I'm really really nervous. Like, already feeling a total uneasiness in my stomach nervous. And it's still 16 hours away. 

But the only reason I know that I can do it is because I'm running with Team World Vision. I signed up with them because I knew it would be great to have so many other runners running with me, but also because I knew that if I was going to make it a whole 26.2 miles, I was going to need to do it for a cause. 

So I signed up and I started the process of raising money, which meant that I did nothing for close to half of my marathon training. BUT the reason I did that was because before I asked people to donate, I really wanted to make sure that I was going to do this thing. And considering I'm at the 15 mile point in training, I'm hoping that people see that I'm serious. 

So I designed a little postcard and sent it out this past week. 

When I first signed up with World Vision, I asked the head of our running group how $50.00 ends up providing clean water for a person for life. It's because World Vision goes in and drills wells, or rehabilitates them if they're in poor condition. When they have clean water, a lot of good things happen (look to the postcard, people!).

So instead of a form letter (like in olden times), I thought I'd come up with a quick, concise little postcard to send to people to let them know what was going on and what I was doing it for. Here's the back.

So my obsession with postcards continues...I'm working on my Thank You for the Referral postcard right now, just so I can have another one to print out.

Next week I'll be back with the aforementioned save the date and baby shower invite and I might even throw in a random summer wrap up post, just for kicks. Until then, enjoy your weekend and please, stay out later than 8 PM tonight, for me. :)

Want to check out other postcards from Vivian Elle? Go here, here, here, and here.

Marriage

Fear not, my friends - this is most definitely not a post that will include me giving any type of advice on marriage. My husband and I have been married four years today. We're still new at this. We just bought our first house a little over a year ago. Luke just finished his first year of teaching. I am working on this business which is relatively new. There is still a lot of newness in our marriage.

Before I was married, I overanalyzed marriage to death. I was afraid of giving up my independence. I was afraid of committing my life to someone else. I was afraid that one day, one of us would wake up and think, "I just don't love you anymore."

And now that I've been married for just a little bit of time, I wanted to take a second to write down how I feel after four years.

To put it bluntly - marriage has exceeded my expectations in every way.

This doesn't mean that I don't get so angry at Luke sometimes that I just want to drop kick him in the face. Because I do. Ask any of our close friends or family - they've seen us at our not so finest moments.

But the part where I get to share each and every part of my life with a guy that I adore has been pretty great. And the part where I get to be 100% fully myself with him even though there's no one else in the world that would laugh at what we're laughing at is pretty great, too.

And the thing that I've loved most about it all is how incredibly normal it is. I love when we're just sitting on the couch at night, watching TV, sometimes with both laptops open on our laps. I love the times we take a walk together or just go out for dinner because I don't want to cook or lay in bed at night and watch a TV show to fall asleep to. I love that we just enjoy everyday normal life together.

As our anniversary has approached, I've been thinking a lot about marriage. If someone asked me for advice on marriage after four short years, I would probably laugh. And then if they were serious, I might say, "ummm...make sure you communicate?"

The truth is, I have a lot longer to go before I would ever offer anyone advice on marriage. But I love my marriage. Every little imperfect bit of it. Mostly because somehow, four years ago now, I made a really really good choice when I said "I do" to Luke.

I have our wedding vows framed in our guest room. A few weeks ago I took some time to look at them again. My dad wrote them - being that he is such a good writer, we gladly let him take the task of writing our vows from us and I've never regretted it. And I just wanted to have them documented here. As I read them, I am just struck by how very normal they are.

Luke and I will never be famous. We probably won't travel the world or achieve any kind of success as the world might define it. But we vowed to live really normal lives side by side four years ago today, and I'm so glad we did.

Luke, having already taken you as my friend,
I now take you as my husband and lifelong companion
and promise to give myself wholeheartedly to you alone,
to cherish you alone,
to love and honor you,
to protect and support you in everything you do,
to enjoy your presence for the rest of my life,

to celebrate your gifts,
to ease your burden,
to encourage you,
to dream with you,
to laugh and cry with you,
to abide with you,
to reserve for you the full measure of my devotion, commitment, and love,

and to remember that whatever 

I may accomplish in life, 

none of it compares

with the excellence of being your wife.

Lately

So...the past few weeks have been a blur.

First, I took a trip to Wichita, Kansas to see this friend from college.

And meet this little girl whom you might remember from this post. 

It was wonderful to spend time with my friend Laura from college. We're usually with three other friends who we've traveled with for years now, but this time it was just me and her. We went to Liya's swim lessons and talked and ran together and talked and went to the zoo and talked and laid out and talked some more. I don't think I've ever had so much time with just her and it really is something I'll cherish forever. Also, she introduced me to House Hunters on HGTV. How had I never seen it before? What was I doing with my life?

After Wichita, I headed back to Chicago (where I flew out of to go to Wichita) and spent the 4th of July with the best friend, Amy.

We watched fireworks, sat out on her back porch, went shopping, ate at Pinkberry (I had Nutella on my ice cream...divine.), watched an 1980s PBS program on ice cream shops, ate Chicago style hotdogs, and just caught up on every aspect of our lives.

We were also to meet up with our friend-since-high-school-days, Dave, and his lady friend, Sarah (not pictured).

All in all, my vacation was great, but at the end of my week away, I was so thankful to be coming home to my husband and my home, my favorite place to be.

When I came home, we dealt with this little situation and we started working again at the summer program we teach at each year. It was a hectic week, but I was glad to make it out alive and with a new little friend from the Humane Society.

And that brings us to this week. I feel like the past few weeks have flown by and I'm just trying to catch my breath and it doesn't help that I randomly have a cold in the middle of the summer.

But I've been working on Vivian Elle stuff and I promise that once I'm done with this teaching gig, I'll start weekly posting again. I might even do one next week on some business cards that I did way too long ago now. But I have 3 wedding invites, 3 shower invites and a hostess brunch invite to show and those will be up the blog soon.

Until then, enjoy every bit of your summer, even if your husband gave you a cold, too (it helps me to blame him :)).

Lava Bean

About 5 years ago, I saw my husband with a kitten for the first time. It was a little stray that ended up being my brother and sister-in-law's cat. I honestly felt like I'd never seen Luke love anything like he loved this little kitten. I immediately thought, "I have to make him this happy all the time."

It was shortly before Christmas and I realized that the perfect gift would be to get a cat for Luke. We were engaged and not living together so I decided that I'd get him a cat that could stay at my apartment until we got married.

I spent the next few days going back and forth to the local Humane Society in search of the perfect cat for Luke. I was hauling myself over there on my lunch breaks (I have never been good at just waiting until the appropriate time when I get an idea in my head - I must do it RIGHT THEN) and leaving work immediately when I got off to see if any kittens had been brought in.

On one of those trips, I walked into the Humane Society and a new litter of kittens had just been dropped off. There were a ton of people there for the holidays, but I found a worker and she told me I could hold one.

I selected an orange tabby and found a windowsill to sit on in a little hallway. I cupped my hands together and held this little kitten right there, knowing that this was the one for us. He was just really lovable and so content sitting there in my hands. It just seemed like a good fit.

I started to go through the procedure of adopting him. I had to wait a few days before I picked him up and I spent that time getting everything I needed to house a kitten.

(Keep in mind that I think we set our Christmas gift budget at $100.00. I think I spent $120.00 on a carrier/litterbox/toys alone. You might say I went overboard.)

So when I went to pick him up, I told the worker at the Humane Society which cat I was there for (I believe at the time his name was Prancer or Vixen or something like that since it was the holidays) and they brought him out. And when the lady handed him over to me, she said, "ohhhh...he didn't want to leave his sister."

You know what happened.

This little boy cat (right) and his little sister (left) came into our lives and we (correction: LUKE) named them Lava and Magma. I called them Lava Bean and Magma Girl. To say we immediately became obsessed with these cats is an understatement.

I've often said that if loving children is even better than loving cats, then I can't even imagine that kind of love.

Luke's often said that he doesn't think he'll ever love children as much as we've loved our cats.

Like I said, obsessed.

What made Lava and Magma so special is not just that they were the best little pets, but that they were the first things that were really ours. Mine and Luke's together. We loved loving on the cats together and we loved sending pictures of them to each other and we loved bragging about how awesome they were to anyone who would listen.



Lava and Magma lived with me in my first apartment and then they moved with me into the condo that Luke and I lived in when we were married. Two years later, we moved from our condo into my parents' house. Two months later, we moved into our first home. The cats were with us during every move. Constant little companions to us during each change in our lives.

Yesterday, we had to put Lava down. About eight months ago, we found out that he had an autoimmune disease called pemphigus. We spent the time between then and now going back and forth to the vet, trying different antibiotics and steroids in an attempt to keep him alive. He would get better for the first week or so of each new treatment and we would get really really hopeful, and then he'd just get worse again. Sores would show up on his nose, around his mouth, inside his ears, between his toes.

Last week I was gone for a week. I came back and within a day, Lava had sores all over his face and ears and so we called to make an appointment with the vet to get his steriod shot.

I put Lava in the car to take him into the vet. He immediately peed all over his crate. When we got him in the vet's office and he was weighed, he was down a little bit. I knew that both of these were bad signs and when the vet's assistant left the room, tears filled my eyes. Something in me knew that it was time to make a hard decision and I had already started to come to terms with that.

The vet came in. He was the same vet that had been seeing Lava the whole time. He was sympathetic to our situation and had tried to make decisions throughout the process that would help Lava. He looked at my little cat and asked a few questions and then become silent for what seemed like forever. I knew that he was figuring out a way to delicately say that it was time.

I started crying and I have no clue what I said during our conversation, but I do remember that I told him I felt guilty putting a not yet 5 year old cat down because of a skin condition. And then the vet told me that we've faught hard for Lava and that the fact that we felt guilty showed how much we loved him. And then he told me what I needed to hear - that making the decision to put Lava down was a perfectly acceptable and understandable choice at this point.

I asked the vet if we were able to do it right then. I knew that dragging it out would be too much. I called Luke and told him that I felt like it was time. He came right up to the vet.

We cried as I held Lava in the cradling position that I always held him in. Even though I thought I wanted to hold him until he was gone, in the end, we asked the vet if we could just go and if he would hold him until he passed. Then Luke and I left and went and cried in the bathroom of the vet's office together.

Lava was a great cat. He was so cuddly and so sweet and even our friends that didn't like cats said that our cats were different. Lava would cradle himself in my arm at night as I slept and he would always let me hold him for as long as I wanted (his sister lets me hold her for as long as she wants :)).

This is the last photo I took of Lava. It was two days ago and was actually a photo I snapped to send to my mom so she could see the pillows I got for our window seat. This is where Lava spent most of his time the last few months of his life. He wasn't himself and it always made me sad when I would stop to pet him as he laid in this room. I knew things were coming to an end.

Naturally, my mom commented that she liked the cat shaped pillow the best.

But I won't remember Lava for how he was at the end of his life. Instead, I'll remember him like he is in the picture below. Our first little pet together. So lovable. So sweet. So affectionate.

We're sad, but I know we'll move on. I understand that Lava was "just a cat," but I also think any pet owner knows that that's not really true. You open your hearts and you love these pets and they become a part of your life - a part of your story. Lava brought unbelieveable joy to our lives. So much more than I would have ever expected when I held him in my hands that day at the Humane Society.

We'll never have another cat just like Lava, but as my mom told me last night, we'll have another cat that we love just as much as we loved Lava. Until then, we'll keep loving on his sister, as long as she'll let us hold her. :)

The Year of the Marathon

I remember very clearly one day back in 2008 thinking that if I wanted to remain somewhat in shape for the rest of my life, I better get moving (yes, this thought was just occurring to me at age 27. I was late to the game). 

So I signed up to run a race - the Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago. It was an 8K which seemed easy enough. My best friend had run it in the past and I emailed to see if she'd be interested in running it with me that year, too. She was, and so we both started training separately (she was, and still is, living in Chicago). 

My first day of training called for me to run two miles. This seemed HUGE to me at the time. I drove up to a local middle school one January evening (so less people could see me, of course) and ran around the track in the slush until I completed the two miles. 

Pretty soon I had completed the Shamrock Shuffle and decided to train for a half marathon that October.  I enlisted another friend to train with me and we began training using a Hal Higdon training schedule.  After a couple of weeks, we were amazed that we could run several miles without even thinking about it. We would chat and run and it was so great to have her next to me during those long miles. Here we are after we finished our first half marathon.

(It should be noted that my running buddy, Amy, is much faster than me, so after a few miles she ran ahead. This is us finding each other after the race.)

The next year, Amy and I thought we'd try out the half marathon again. Shortly after we started training, Amy found out she was pregnant. She consulted with her doctor to make sure it was safe to continue running (it was) and we started training together for a second time. And this time we actually ran the entire race together, side by side (yes, you read that right...it takes a pregnancy to slow a girl down enough to run with me).

So we completed our second half marathon and then Amy retired from running and had her little girl. This left me with a decision to make the next year - to try out the half marathon by myself or to sit it out.

I decided to give it a go. How hard could it be training without someone?

Turns out, harder than I thought. When Amy and I trained for two half marathons together, it seemed almost easy.  We said a million times during our training that having each other to train with was the best thing we could have done.

Now I was training alone. But even though it was hard, I tried my best to do the training sans running partner.

I failed.

Here is my story.

The race day was quickly approaching and I hadn't finished my training. The weekly runs weren't going that poorly, but my weekend runs (the long ones) were. So while I should have ran up to 10 miles before race day, I had only run eight. I started wondering whether or not I could do this race and I was seriously leaning towards sitting it out.

But then my brother-in-law came home from Brooklyn to run the race with me and my father-in-law. He was staying with my husband and me and was all like, "you should totally do it you can do it blah blah blah."

So against my better judgement, I decided to attempt the race even though I was so incredibly ill-prepared (this is where things start to go downhill, people).

Fast forward a few days, and there I stood at the starting line, in a crowd of people that all looked way more psyched than I was to be running this thing. I resented them.

The race started and there was a lot more cheering and excitement (picture me giving the stink eye to everyone around me). I kept thinking, "what am I doing?", but then would tell myself that 13.1 miles really wasn't that much and I could force myself to do anything for a few hours, right?

So I finally get the starting point and I begin running. My shins start hurting approximately .34 miles into the race. I remember the thoughts in my head like it was yesterday:

"You can do this."
"My shins don't hurt that bad."
"If I keep running the pain will go away."
"Just keep running. Just keep running. Just keep running..."
"WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL SO EXCITED?!"
"Wait...I'm nearing the Canadian border. Uhhhh..."

Here's the thing about the half marathon that I was running. It's an international race. So about 3 miles in, you run across the bridge from Michigan to Canada, run 4 miles or so in Canada, then run through the tunnel back over to Michigan.

With my shins hurting, the international part of the race really started to concern me. What if I can't finish but I don't realize it until I'm in Canada and then one of those emergency cars has to come and get me? Suddenly being in Canada seemed like the worst thing EVER. Like, once I was over there, they might never give me back or something.

At that point, there was only one rational thing to do.

I HAD TO GET OUT OF THE RACE.

I scoped out the scene. I was towards the back of the crowd (naturally), so I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before the end of the crowd would reach me.

So here's what I did:

I ran over to the sidewalk, making sure to do it right around the porta-potties. I acted casual - "NBD, guys. I'm cool. I just have to go to the bathroom a mile and a half into the race. Nothing unusual about that."

I looked around, making sure no one was staring at me (why they would be, I have no clue). Then I slowly turned myself towards a wall where no one could see my next move - taking my bib off.  This was VERY important.

See, in my mind, I could just picture myself walking back to the starting line wearing my bib and runners yelling, "no! you can do it! give it another chance!" And I was not having any of that. I wanted out of the race and no optimistic runner would stop me!

So I did it. I slowly took each pin out of my bib and then tucked it into my pocket. Then I started my walk of shame back to the starting line (picture me sad, with my head hanging low, only not really because I had really wanted to stop running).

There is a silver lining in all of this (I may just be forcing it, but I like to think it's there). Because I was back at the start so early, I was able to see the winners of the marathon come in. It was so very inspirational - in fact, I may have teared up at the first woman to come across the finish line.

And then I got to see my brother-in-law cross, too, which was also cool. He saw me, and a look of sheer confusion came over his face (he later told me that it was a mix of him having had a hard race and him wondering how the heck I beat him).

So I didn't finish the race. In fact, I didn't finish a fourth of the race. Let's call it exactly what it was - a failure to meet a goal.

But here's what I've learned in life (cue the sappy music): one failure doesn't negate everything else. I've run two half marathons in my life, and that's not bad. The third one didn't work out, but I guess I have a somewhat humorous story to tell people (depending on your definition of humorous. to many, it's probably just sad).

Having had a bit of a blow to the ego, I took a break from running for a couple of years and enjoyed other forms of exercise instead. But the marathon - the full marathon - stuck in the back of my mind.  I've just always wanted to do one. To say I was able to run 26.2 miles. To be a part of that group of people.

Well, folks, the time has come. This is the year of the marathon. Whether I run, walk, crawl, or am airlifted to the finish line, I will finish the Detroit Free Press Marathon this October.

I'm not only signed up for the marathon, I've teamed up with World Vision to run for a good cause.  Because as seen in the story I just told, I will need all the motivation I can get to actually finish this race, and I felt like helping people get clean water was a really good start.

So in the spirit of each post being somewhat related to paper goods, I designed this little guy to tell you some information about what World Vision does. I'm not asking for donations (as you can see, my info for donations is not even on there), but I just wanted to share something that has become near and dear to my heart lately.

I'm heading out of town tomorrow for a long weekend, but I'll be back next week with more invitations to show. Enjoy your weekends!

Merry Christmas

{This card is now available at Vivian Elle's Etsy Shop. Click here to visit!}

So...it's not Christmas anymore. But, I am still hearing a Christmas song or two on the radio and it's currently snowing pretty hard outside, so I think I'm safe to post this Merry Christmas blog, a day late. 

I truly hope your Christmas was a merry one with your family and friends. My husband and I spent Christmas Eve with his family and Christmas day with mine. However, we actually didn't get to see my brother and his wife yesterday, so we're about to leave to go see my family again and do one last little celebration together.

But first, I just wanted to show the Christmas cards that I designed for me and my husband this year. 

You know those cards that are all over Pinterest? The Year in Review cards? As you can see, that's where the general idea came from.

This year has been big for us, so I thought that another year in review card would work well, just like last year's card.

The beginning of 2012 had us wondering where we'd be living at the end of 2012. We knew we had to be out of our condo by April, but we had no clue what would come after that.

Well, on June 1, we moved into our new house. A house that I seriously still get a little giddy about each time I pull into our driveway.

And then in October, my husband got a full time teaching job, after we had just spent the summer discussing how we were completely content with him growing his guitar business (he had about 30 students and was doing really well with it) and substitute teaching on the side.

And then in November, I got a call from my regional rep from The Knot, who told me that my business - yes, this here little business - had been selected as one of The Best of The Knot for 2013. I have honestly never worked harder on anything in my life, so to say that I was excited about this honor is a complete understatement.

So it's safe to say that our year held a few surprises for us. And I just wanted to document that, so that one day when we're 80 and look back, we can remember that this was an exciting chapter in our lives.

Here's hoping that your year held a few surprises for you, too. Merry Christmas!

Here goes...

This blogging thing scares me. A lot.

I've been thinking about starting a blog for about three months now and it has just not happened. I tend to move the tasks that I think are most difficult to the end of my to-do list and they stay there for a really long time.  For some reason starting a blog was one of those super difficult tasks that I was just not ready to do.

But today when I received an email from my friend Heidi saying that she started a blog (which came out of nowhere, when I've been all talk for three months!), I decided today was the day. So I logged in here and just started to write. I thought I'd write about my hesitation before telling you the real reason I'm here, in the hopes that anyone who reads this would like to know a little about the personality behind this blog before they look at some invitations.

But before moving on to posts about said invitations, I'll introduce myself. My name is Jenny and I'm the face of Vivian Elle Invitations. Here is what I look like:

(I should mention that I don't have a lot of options for a picture of myself because I rarely take pictures of just me. This is why you're looking at a picture of me at The Melting Pot from my last birthday. And I cannot remember what was on that fork, but I assure you it was delicious.)

And though my name is not Vivian Elle, I have a good reason for making that the name of my invitation business. Here she is:

This is my little niece, Vivian Elle. I call her Viv. She is precious and completely worthy of having a business named after her. Don't you just want to squeeze those cheeks?!

Well, that's all for now. More posts to follow. I promise they will be about invitations.

Welcome to my blog. Turns out it isn't so scary after all. :)