so i've been doing upper and lower body workouts but i'm up to 3 exercises for each and it takes forever. at 3 days a week its hard to fit it all in. what would be a good alternate split

Have you looked at body for life? They have a upper/lower body split on their website which I believe is from the book:
http://bodyforlife.com/exercise/weighttraining.asp

Stumptuous also has a pretty good beginner upper/lower body split
http://www.stumptuous.com/workout-2

There are other workout routines that you can browse there as well:
http://www.stumptuous.com/category/t.../workout_ideas

I'm currently doing the New Rules of Lifting for women and its not really a lower/upper split but its a good variety of working opposing muscles on alternating days.

Two options spring to mind:

Skip the split altogether. Check out "the new rules of lifting for women" book, for full body workouts using compound exercises...hits everything hard, without taking 2 hours in the gym. It's perfect for a 3 days a week schedule of lifting.

Keep the split, but put in some compound lifts to pare down the time. If you post your current split, we could suggest some ways to sub out more time-efficient exercises.

first of all i've done bfl forever and personally i think i outgrew it and now tend to add more exercises to each body part...in fact up to 3 exercises per body part. i will check out that book

Yeah if you grew out of BFL, the New Rules of Lifting book is what I'd recommend. 3 exercises per body part is a bit overkill.