But, ta-daaaa! Here I am, and I have BIG NEWS.

I GRADUATED!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhh, yes. The day finally came when I could pack-up the school books and close down Microsoft Word. On Mother’s Day (for real, who plans these things?), I graduated from IUPUI with my MA in PR Management in Health Care and Life Sciences (say that 3x fast). About freaking time, it’s been three years! I have literally been in school for 19 years. 19. One. Nine. I don’t know how med students do it, because near the end, I was damn-near brain-dead.

Anyways, yes– I’m a Master at life, err…PR. Master in PR. Mom and Dad wanting nothing more than to see me walk and be hooded, so I did. It still hasn’t hit me that I am done. Maybe it will around the holidays when I have NOTHING to do except bake cookies, eat and watch holiday shows all day. I was thinking I should probably develop some kind of hobby now that I have so-called, “free time,” (even though I hadn’t had a chance to blog in two weeks…). But then I remembered…OH YEAH, the boy and I bought a house so you better believe I am about to be decorating up a storm and watching HGTV/Pinteresting for ideas!

Summer is just about here, and now that I have that little thing called grad school out-of-the-way, I am super pumped to turn my house into a home!

The rents and me!

See, this is my “I mean business face.”

I started this blog in May 2010. It wasn’t by choice. In fact, it was an assignment I had to maintain throughout my summer semester of graduate school in a class about online public relations. Being the nerdy kid I am, striving for an A, naturally I kept it up. At the time, I was instructed to write about public relations, social media, marketing, communications, professional work, etc. After the class was over, I decided to keep the blog going. It was a nice little escape for me, something that was in my control.

Two years later, my blog is still alive and well. I’ve never been too concerned about the number of followers or stats I had, but as time went on, I became more anxious about the type of content I posted and if it would interest readers. These past two years, my blog has stayed professional as I talked about work, PR, a little about my personal life, family—blah, blah, blah.

Well, that’s all BORING.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my job. I love the people I work with, I love maintaining client relations and pretending I live in a MadMen advertising world. However, I get enough of that during the day. When I come home, it’s another story. Believe it or not, I think I do have an interesting life—and it’s about to get even more interesting.

It’s time for a change of pace; a new direction. No more blogging about work…okay, maybe just a little bit every now and then…but seriously, not a lot. I’m keeping the two separate, like church and state. Maybe every now and then I will have a great work story to share. However, most of the time, this blog will be devoted to everything I think about but don’t necessarily speak about.

My boyfriend and I are closing on a fantastic Cape Cod looking house on June 26. I’ve never lived with a boy (Dad and Brother don’t count, now). I know there are going to be interesting stories to share. I’m very much a goody goody, follow-the-rules, organized and neat, semi-OCD type of gal, about to move in with a boy who can never be on time and leaves clothes in the same spot for more than two weeks. How.  Am.  I. Going. To. Do. This. P.S. I’m MADLY in love with this guy.

At the same time, I’m turning 25 this September and need to start developing…skills. Like…Martha Stewart skills without the whole jail time thing. I already love cleaning, but shoot, I have to cook and do laundry and all that. Let’s see how well I balance young professional life with that of a Suzie homemaker. Crap, I need to decorate too; I have an empty house and not the greatest knack for interior design.

With that said, I’m going to need a place to let it all out, to shout from the rooftops, to let out my frustrations, but also my joys. You get my point—my blog content is getting a makeover. New title and tagline, too. No more miss nice Jackie, all the time. It’s about to get REAL.

However, desserts are my weakness. When I’m full after a meal, it’s really hard for my willpower to kick in and say no when dessert is offered. Ice cream, chocolate, cakes, cookies… (Sigh) So when my coworker made white chocolate Oreo popcorn, my world turned upside down. I love the sweet/salty mix, and this treat was beyond delicious. Best of all, it is so simple! Did I mention it’s yummy? Lucky for you, I have the recipe!

What you’ll need:
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 1 package of Oreos
- Popcorn (Either 1 bag popped or 1 batch in the air popper, butter or kettle corn–whatever you’re in the mood for!)

Directions: Make your popcorn, set aside. Take out a row of Oreos and crush them in a Ziploc bag using your fingers (you could also use a rolling-pin), set aside. Melt the white chocolate chips in the microwave until all chips are melted.

Place popcorn in a fairly large bowl, pour the melted white chocolate over the popcorn, add the crushed Oreos, mix carefully until the popcorn and Oreos are coated. You can then either leave it in the bowl or pour it out onto a cookie sheet for the chocolate to harden.

That’s it! You are done!

I dare you to not have more than one handful…

Though my last ‘real’ class was last Thursday, I still had a final to complete. A big pain in the you know what final (one question took me three hours, no joke). I had about two questions left yesterday and spent a good majority of the day finishing, proofing and printing that bad boy. Next Thursday is my real last day of school—but the class is meeting at my favorite restaurant in Indy to turn those suckers in, Santorini’s Greek Kitchen, AKA Athens in Indy (HEAVEN).

Waking up this morning, for the first time in three years not having to worry about school, put me in a state of tranquility. No more balancing act between work and school. No more saying no to plans because I need to finish a paper. No more library or Starbucks days to hammer out a case study. I have my life back to do as I please!!!

Don’t get me wrong, if I had to do it all over again, I’d still get my MA. I’m a better writer, researcher and PR professional because of it. My education is something no one will ever be able to take away from me. And man, am I glad I finished before having a husband or kids. Major props to my classmates who juggled work, school, parenting and families—I salute you because that is NOT easy.

Now that I have all this ‘free time,’ I told my friends and family that I’ll have to find some kind of hobby or something to keep me busy. Well, hopefully I’ll be able to share good news by the end of this week—but I have found the perfect thing to keep me busy throughout the summer and the fall…more to come on that later!!

Now, time to read a book for fun…

Thinking of Nana reminded me not only how much I miss her, but how happy she made me. The perfect fuel I needed to start the ‘blog fire’. Below are 50 things that make me happy. Are any of these on your happy list?

1. Fresh manicure/pedicure
2. Ice cream
3. Actually, just food in general…
4. Finding the most perfect outfit for an occasion
5. Entertainment magazines
6. A freshly mowed lawn
7. The smell of spring
8. A tough workout
9. Bath with candles
10. Wine
11. Mad Men
12. Approaching a red light only to have it turn green before I stop
13. The feeling of the sun when it hits my face
14. The ocean
15. Kittens
16. Vacations
17. Receiving hand-written cards
18. Finding a parking spot close to the store/restaurant
19. Picking out presents
20. Impressing my coworkers
21. Getting A’s in school
22. Organization
23. Reading books for fun (no more school books!)
24. When I receive a random kudos from a coworker or client
25. Amusement parks
26. Threaded eyebrows
27. Sleep
28. Dancing to 80′s music
29. Nailing a client presentation
30. Wearing pumps that don’t hurt my feet
31. Good hair days
32. When I shop online and find my purchases waiting at my doorstep
33. Sparkling car after a car wash
34. When I get money back on my tax return
35. Laughing so hard I cry
36. Making a new recipe that turns out SO yummy
37. When I get surprised (the good kind of surprised)
38. Traveling
39. Finding money in the pocket of my jeans
40. Being healthy
41. When my cat crawls on my lap all by herself
42. Weddings
43. Feel-good movies
44. Waking up refreshed and ready for the day
45. When I cross everything off my ‘to do’ list
46. Flowers (not just receiving them, but seeing them bloom!)
47. Seeing elderly couples hold hands
48. Massages
49. Afternoon naps (weekends of course!)
50. Though this is #50, it is #1 in my life–being with my family/friends/the man. No comparison to anything else.

That’s the number of classes I have left in graduate school. The end is so close and I’m coasting through these last couple of classes. As I approach the finish line, I’ve had time to look back and reminisce over the many nights and weekends I’ve dedicated to this MA degree. Here’s a little A-Z guide to completing graduate school while working a full-time job.

A-     Abort (What you should do if studying goes past midnight)

B-      Beaches (What’s nice to think about as you start your fifth communications paper)

C-      Clouded (How your mind feels after the professor reviews the syllabus)

D-     Daring (How you feel when you leave work at 5:45 p.m. and class starts at 6 p.m.)

E-      Exhausted (How you often feel at the end of the day)

F-      Friendly (The way you should act toward classmates even if you don’t feel that way)

G-     Genius (What you are!)

H-     Headache (What you often have after a crazy work and school day)

I-       Ice cream (Makes homework more enjoyable)

J-       Jack Daniels (Makes you forget about class altogether. I kid… I kid, but really)

K-      Kittens (Make you smile, every time)

L-      Love (What family and friends provide you to keep you going)

M-    Mad Men (The show to watch that reminds you how awesome your industry is)

N-     Nights (The time of day that you should take classes so you can keep working full-time)

O-     Overwhelmed (A feeling you will identify with often, but get used to)

P-      Pedicure (A great way to reward yourself after a big assignment is turned in)

Q-     Quarter (The change you will need to fill the meter when you don’t want to spend $200+ for a parking pass)

R-      Running (Relieves the stress)

S-      Strong (What you need to be)

T-      Time-management (The skill you HAVE to have to balance priorities)

U-     Unconscious (What happens to you when your head hits the pillow every night)

V-     Values (What to remind yourself to reaffirm why you’re getting the degree)

W-   Wheaties (Breakfast of champions, of course)

X-      Xanax (What you feel like taking, but don’t need to!)

Y-      Yes ‘you can’ (The phrase to tell yourself when you say, “I can’t do this…”)

Z-      Zestful (How you feel when you have four classes left!!)

Mad Men follows protagonist, Don Draper, his secrets, and the advertising agency he works for, Sterling Cooper Draper Price. As much as I’d like to think the show’s agency life mimics my profession to a T, it doesn’t exactly, but there are similarities. I’ve had the big client presentations and the brainstorming/strategic planning sessions. I have felt the gratification of satisfying a client, but also seeing disappointment when something my team presents was not what the client had in mind. However, you won’t see me with a Lucky Strike in-hand every day or pouring glasses of Old Fashioned’s when someone enters my office. But, the Old Fashioned’s would be nice…

It’s okay. Still love the show and I think Don Draper should run for President. The fifth season two-hour premiere is this Sunday (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and what better way to get prepared then make a Mad Men Avatar of myself? Even my boyfriend Scott played along. Cute, eh? I think we’d fall for each other on the show.

Scott’s from Carbondale, Illinois. He would choose the gun accessory, ha! Make one yourself HERE!

My iPod is my best workout companion. When new songs come out that get me going, I add them to my workout mix. It is an ever-growing mix. Some songs stay for months, others may be on it for a couple of weeks. I also like variety—everything from Rihanna to Good Charlotte. Here are my top 10 that have surpassed the five-month mark.

• The Show Goes On, Lupe Fiasco
• Party Rock Anthem, LMFAO
• We Are Young, Fun, feat. Janelle Monae
• Ni**as in Paris, Kanye West & JAY Z
• I’m On A Boat, The Lonely Island, feat. T-Pain
• Bottoms Up, Trey Songz, feat. Nicki Minaj
• Dynomite, Taio Cruz
• Give Me Everything, Pitbull, feat. Ne-Yo
• Single Ladies, Beyonce
• Heard The World, OAR

What songs are on your list? I’m always looking for fresh hits.