Kate Lockwood of Oceanport does not like feeling out of control. So when she found herself out of work two years ago, she decided she needed to look beyond the classroom for work. "I was lost," says the mom of two about being let go from her teaching position due to downsizing. "I mean, what do you do?" she adds, noting that she had worked at the local private school for nine years. What bothered her the most about the layoff, she says, was that it wasn't her decision. "It wasn't my call," says Lockwood, whose daughters are 8- and 5-years-old. "Somebody else forced it." After subbing for two …

Everybody has a story. Patch is looking for women who are starting over, maybe because the kids have grown up and moved out or there's been a divorce, and using their passions as a springboard for a new career. In the past few weeks, we've told the story of two friends who made a knack for baking a lucrative business; a single mom and former teacher who opened a local writing studio to help give young writers a voice; a former swimsuit model and mother of three who's turning a passion for swimwear into a line of children's bathing suits; and an artist who suddenly found that losing her job as…

For Carol Bruno of Little Silver, everything happens for a reason. For 30 years, she worked alongside a dentist focusing on the patient in the chair until "out-of-the-blue," she was told that her services as a dental assistant were no longer needed 18 months ago. "That was very traumatic," Bruno recalled, perched on a stool around her tiled kitchen island on a recent afternoon. "It took a long time to get over it," she said, adding that ultimately she made the decision to move on for good. "It was all a part of my journey," Bruno, 55, said. Bruno, who has lived in Little Silver for 30 years, …

Little Silver mom Farley Boyle knows bathing suits. "I'm a Florida girl," says the Sarasota native, surrounded by dozens of little bikini tops and bottoms scattered on her family room floor. "I grew up in flip flops and a bikini." Boyle, who just launched her new line of swim wear for girls called Squirtini Bikini, is describing the natural progression she's made from those sandy beginnings to beach volleyball player turned swimwear model and now designer. While playing volleyball in college, Boyle says the swim suit remained a staple of her wardrobe. Even then, she says, she looked for ways …

Gabriella Bonocore and Susan Buchenberger, the duo behind Cupcake of Little Silver, have found that mixing talents from careers they had before staying home with kids has allowed them to nurture a business that has grown up along with their children. When they first started baking cupcakes together five years ago, with four young children between them and Buchenberger expecting her third, they quickly took on tasks that matched their skills. "Sue is definitely back-of-the-house," says Bonocore, using lingo leftover from her days working in Manhattan as a manager for the Union Square …

Jennifer Chauhan says her "aha moment" -- that split second when all the pieces of her professional puzzle began to come into place -- arrived a year ago when a former student, who is now a first grade teacher, told Chauhan that she had inspired her to become an educator. Chauhan, of Little Silver, learned that not only did this former student attend her alma mater -- Columbia's Teachers College -- but that that student was now teaching at Point Road School, where Chauhan's son is in the first grade. Added to that, material from a week-long workshop at Columbia that the former student …