As wonderful as the years were at TZHS I was in a rush to begin the rest of my life. My senior year of TZHS was spent at Rockland Community College trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life before going off to college. I remember considering becoming an architect after I fell in love with a drafting class, drawing nuts and bolts.
Starting at a young age I made a lot of my own clothes, redesigning garments, changing collars, sleeves and cuffs, to my own liking. I seemed to have been a master on the sewing machine so I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology for fashion design. The first day of classes I took a pattern making class and transferred the next week into the pattern making department becoming a production pattern maker. Who knew there was such a thing! It never occurred to me as a youngin that someone actually made those McCall and Butterick patterns my mother used to buy for me. It was the perfect combination of drafting, draping and making hard copy patterns. I also became a pattern grader (converting all the garment sizes) and a spec technician. I was a production pattern maker for many years.
When my husband Joel and I started our family I did go down to part time but I had that career for 20 years. I then wanted and needed a career change to be more available for the family. What to do? I went with my second passion and I became a personal trainer specializing in special populations. The gym was in our home.
Joel, also a TZ graduate that many of you might remember, and I have been married for 45 incredible years, and we still like each other. We meet at age 7, started dating at 17, and so began our life and our story that we love to tell. We started off living in Fort Lee, NJ and moved to Closter, NJ when we started our family. We have 2 beautiful in every way successful daughters, and while I am writing this we are expecting our 3rd grand child.
Joel and I fortuitously retired the January before Covid to spend time with the babies. We workout together, we hike, and we bike, and I love to box, which I do 2-3 times a week. I still take out my sewing machine but only to do the family’s alterations. We enjoy dinners in and out with friends, or just with each other. We travel quite a bit but we love to come home!!