Introduction to Hosts

Welcome to the very first episode of the Generational Tea Podcast, where you'll get to know your hosts and hear about the vision behind our exciting new project! We will dive into our personal stories, mother-daughter-in-law bond, and why we decided to start spilling the tea across generations. From family dynamics to career journeys, and our shared  passion for empowering women, this episode will set the stage for conversations to come. 

• Intro music by Cymatix
• Graphic by @makariann
• Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @generationalteapod, watch us on YouTube, and listen to us wherever you get your podcasts!
• Business email: generationalteapod@gmail.com

Transcript

0:12

Welcome to our intro episode to get to know your hosts. I'm Kena and I'm Ronnie. Ronnie. We are super excited. Yes. This is just going to be a short episode where we give you a little bit of our background. And go over the mission and get into why we started this podcast and why it's so important to us and what to expect from our episodes in the future. Awesome. Yes. Let me hear it. Ronnie. So my name is Rhonda, but I go by Ronnie. That is my. grandma name for my four male dogs and two male cats. Yes, still canine wanted to keep this going on. So only female in the family still yet today, and we're killing it. Yes. but anyways, so glad you guys could join us. This is something, that Kate and I have. Talked about, walked away from, came back to, and, just decided we would jump in. we were excited about sharing with you guys our relationship as a Mother and daughter in law combo. I hope that you will get some information from this and be able to glean something from us. a little bit about myself. I have been married to the same man, Jim Gillespie. He's still the lover of my life. For over 30 years, um, I'm the proud mom of two adult married men who have chosen the best spouses. They could have ever chosen for themselves. So quite possibly I'm the luckiest lady in the room, but here goes nothing. Nah, my husband, Jim and I, have lived in the same small town, Travelers Rest, South Carolina, which, it's crazy over like the last, God, even five years since Kane has been coming down here, it's changed exponentially, but, we just. I have a humble home out in the country and, I raised my boys on Bethmore Bible studies and Dr. Phil episodes. One of the things I cannot live without is a denim shirt. I feel like you ladies. All need to know and my son in law will be so happy that I mentioned that I've never met a denim shirt. I did not look so, at any rate i've got My other son josey. He is our 14 pound snorky snails or yorkie mix who? We're not sure if he can hear See ars smell, but he certainly can taste and sleep. Yeah. So you may find Josie here on, on my lap. but I am just beyond blessed to be involved in something that could impact, multiple generations by just one generation listening. So I just feel like if we meet one, we change one, then we meet another, we change it. So I'm really looking forward to helping, women, girls, grandmothers, aunts, you know, uncles too out there, just connecting with them and given some practical solutions to life's problems. Biggest issues and definitely they're not the biggest they happen the most. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, at the ripe old age of 20 years old, I was in nursing school at our local technical college. there was a new gym that had opened up in the area and it was right down the road from my little technical college. I was still living at home. So guess what? Didn't have to pay for the membership. Went home, said, Hey guys, To my parents, we should go check out this gym. It's beautiful, blah, blah, blah. It's connected to the hospital. We go out there, and this would've been in 1991, so I had graduated high school in 1990. So in 1991, to 92, we became members at this gym, and it worked out great for me because I had class. So I would come in for a 5:00 AM workout, have something on the way to. School have class all day, clinicals, all that stuff, and it was super convenient. My parents were recently retired, so it worked out great with their schedule, but, um, there was a couple of things that I noticed. So Apparently six eight weeks after we joined the schedule switched so I had afternoon clinical so I would come in a different time I noticed when I came in a different time, there was this guy there. He was super tall. and being a five foot nine woman, height is a big issue for me and was, and every prom dress and every prom picture, I've got one knee bent by four inches so that I'm not, Taller than my date and so can and I also connect on that level, but at any rate Yes, yes, so I mean a big thing for us was we have to have tall men at any rate I start noticing this guy and he works there and I figured out. Oh, he comes in at like 11 and he gets off at like 9 and I was like, oh, man. Okay. I got a. Re reconfigure my day, So I figured out that I would just come over after my clinicals, so that was around like three 30 or four. Again, I'm noticing this guy, I'm figuring out his schedule now. I am borderline harassing him. I am working out four hours a day on my days off of school, just so I can see this student and he. Absolutely did not know I existed. I mean, I don't know what it would have taken. I guess, I don't know what I would have had to do, flying on a hot air balloon. I'm not sure, but it became borderline stalking. And so I was trying my best. to get his attention and he was not reciprocating. And I mean, I grew up in a small town, so don't think this is lofty, but I had never had a man that was swooned over me and it was terrible. It was a terrible feeling. Like this guy, what is wrong? Does he have a pulse? Where did he grow up from? He don't see me here for hours. Every shift, his shift is eight hours, half of the shift. You got the same chick staring you down. I have done 26 miles of the treadmill and 58 minutes of yoga. No, no, no. I was very fit, but I'm so grateful because, I shared with his coworkers and another mutual friend of ours that, you know, I'd love to go out with him. And he was not interested in a 20 year old girl be bopping in still living at home because he was 30 years old and I'd been out of the house and had a big boy job. And, you know, Not time for this girl, but he did eventually, I'm sure it was the stalking. It was also the peer pressure and the workplace harassment that caused. So stalk your future husbands, ladies. So anyways, it's been over 31 years. And we're still circling this earth one year at a time, you know, but it's been great. so my husband and I, we have two boys, Garrett is 29. He lives, in Miami, and then we have a son here that's Weston and Weston is 18. about to be 27 and is married to Kena. That's what started this relationship. I have a son in law in Miami as well. His name is Dawson. And so I'm hoping to have him come on some episodes because he is definitely our spirit animal as well. Well, he's the male version. He really is. And I apologize profusely to my son. I'm like, I am so sorry. You married your mother. I mean, How do you top that or how low can you go? it's so funny cause Dawson is the male version of you. And I am basically the introverted version of you. Yes, yes, yes. So we're a happy group. I would say that I have had the best of all worlds as far as all genders for children and all connections in my family. So, I sit here just truly blessed, to be here and I can't wait to like, get into life with you guys and I hope I can help y'all in a way that is profound because I would not want to waste this opportunity for a minute. I'm looking forward to it and KJ. Yeah, I'm excited to do this with you. Do you want to touch on what you did after nursing school? Oh, so after nursing school, I graduated and, passed the NCLEX exam and, went and worked as a floor nurse at the time the local hospital system here. After that, Several years passed. We had kids. I started to do some more float pool stuff and that led me to the ER. So the bulk of my bedside nursing was emergency room. Had a small stint in the cardiac lab and some ICU floating, but really emergency room nursing. And once my kids got into middle school,, I began to pursue, more of a career in diabetes education. So I did that, over at actually the same place where I met my husband. So it's been kind of cool. This place has been so intricately involved in our lives. Our kids have worked out there. It's just been amazing. But, and then, the last, stint of my career as a nurse, I sold insulin pumps, and became a certified diabetes educator. It was for sure the perfect job for me. Well, you're an amazing salesperson. You could sell me the trash on the floor right now. So I love the sales part. of nursing and really felt like that fit my personality more. Since retired from nursing since 2014. So I've had a lot of time on my hands. I've finished raising two boys, sent them off to college, got them married. And, now just kind of like, okay, what do I do with my life? So, just say you hatched, matched and dispatched your son. I think I did. I hatched, matched and dispatched those sons. Oh my gosh. At the past weekend, we went to Rhonda's nephew, my husband's cousin's wedding and the priest that was officiating said something about hatch match and dispatch and we had a good laugh. Yes, yes, yes. we've had a very, exciting fall to winter. We were able to help participate in two black tie weddings and Kena and I will be sharing, some pictures because I mean, there's only. So many times a girl could get that snazzy. So we want to keep this going. do you guys have something that you've done in the fall where you thought, Oh, this is super fancy. I might never get to do this again. Send us some pictures. Let us know what's going on. We really want to know you guys. Yeah, we do. We want to always connect with our fans and I think you'll get an idea of why once they get into our mission and what to expect from our podcasts. Yes. Are you done with chew? I'm done with chew. What you got? Oh, I got not as much as you got. Well, all right. Well, I'll get into a little bit of my background now. don't have as much life experience as Ronnie here, but I think that's part of why we're excited to do this is we're going to be offering our listeners perspectives of two very different generations and backgrounds and Yeah, we'll get into that later, but I'm 25, I was born in Wyoming, raised in Colorado. That's where most of my family still lives. I was homeschooled until eighth grade, super socially stunted, but I think I'm all right now. I think I'm mostly socially up to speed. So I grew up and I played volleyball. My mom had played volleyball and my older sister did, and I wanted to be just like them. So I spent most of my time either in school or volleyball and I actually got a scholarship. I went to Carson Newman, which is a. Private school in Tennessee and loved my time there. That's where I fell in love with the South. And that's also where I met my husband Weston, which is Ronnie's son. One of my teammates from college married one of his friends from high school. So we met at their wedding. We dated for our senior years of college, and then we got engaged, and we were engaged for about a year, and we ended up getting married in May 2022, and been happy ever since. As far as jobs, so in school, I studied psychology and political science. Those are two areas that I'm really interested by, but I didn't really want to go back to grad school to get licensed into anything, and I wasn't really sure if I wanted to. You know, enter the political. Minefield. So ever since then, I've just been working odd jobs and honestly, I haven't been very happy. I feel like I'm someone who needs to be very fulfilled by my work. And so I've been working like restaurant jobs. I managed an acai bowl restaurant. I've done a lot of different things. I've coached volleyball and a lot of these past few years has just been me struggling to get to know myself and find what I'm passionate about. I think because I played volleyball and was so busy. For so many years, I didn't have time to explore things that I'm passionate about. And so I think these past few years for me since college has just been, you know, figuring out marriage, figuring out who I am and figuring out what I want to do. And earlier in 2024, I actually launched another podcast with one of my friends. I'm really passionate about reading. I especially love fantasy books. So her and I have a podcast where we deep dive into fantasy books. And I realized how much I loved putting my voice out there once I was a little more confident in myself and just the concept of podcasting and the chance that you can turn it into something. A full time job. So that's what I want to work towards is making my podcast full time job. So I can do that. And I've always kind of known it about myself, but I've felt like I've realized how important it is for me to my calling is to influence people, especially women and help connect them. To things that will improve their lives. So along those lines, and that's something me and Ronnie have talked about and she has so much wisdom to share. We want to help women. And we were initially planning on writing a book and doing all that. And I was like, well, podcasting is so much fun. Why don't we do a podcast so we can have. Guest speakers on, we can talk to so many different women. We can cover so many more topics and this idea started blooming. We were so excited about it and it's finally here. other stuff about me. I'm a crazy cat lady. I have two cats that are the loves of my life. And then I also have a dog who is the bane of my existence, but I love him. Yes. I love my sons. until I have real babies. Those are my children. Other than that, yeah, I think I covered it all. I think you did too., i'm very blessed to have A mother in law that I can also call one of my closest friends and she's really Helped me grow a lot. Yes. Yeah. yeah, so our official mission going into this podcast that we're going to refer back to, and make sure stays at the forefront of our minds is we want to. Empower women. But what does that mean? We want to empower women to step into their full potential, find their voice and create positive change in this world. That's a big passion of mine is I want to find my own style of activism, and I think that is. Just connecting people and speaking to people and making people want to grow and be active in their communities. So that's another aspect of this podcast and the how we're going to do this. We want to have meaningful research discussions and conversations. And every two, three or four episodes, we're going to interview probably mostly women because this is a woman focused podcast, but that's not to say that a man can't listen to this and relate and take something away from it. But primarily woman focused, we're going to be interviewing diverse voices from all generations, all walks of life. And we'll explore topics through those interviews and just through episodes of us talking to each other. We're also going to. Read some books and cover those like the most important parts of the books that we think would help other people. Just really diving into all these topics with all these different people to inspire growth while fostering a community of strength and authenticity and connection. So that is our mission for the podcast. That's why we started it. And. Where we hope it will go. Yes. And you want to add to that? I just want to circle back on the connecting part. throughout the last, probably 10 years, I've had different. Areas of need and different, venues to get those needs and then to turn around and provide needs for others. And so I think a big part. Of female relationships, girl power, boss, whatever you want to call it is connection. I mean, Kana and I are not going to be able to go through everything that you all are going through, but. We strive to find people that complement things that our lives are by having other issues in their lives. And we want to connect people, not just to a person, but to a resource. We want to be able to provide clear, practical application today. That is what our goal is. we want to never leave you guys wondering, what do you do next? Our goal is to put the next between the episodes and that next is you guys. So our commitment to you is we will strive to give you clear, precise, applicable transitions that you can make immediately to change your life. And it won't be easy. And it won't be fast, but it'll be worth it. So just hang in there. This is truly going to be a collaborative community focused podcast. So it's going to rely heavily on feedback from our listeners, whether that's suggestions for topics you want to hear us cover. Suggestions for who you want us to interview, just general feedback, questions you want us to tackle, just random things. This is going to be very community focused. We want to get to know our fans and be able to communicate with you guys and use your voices to help shape where this podcast is going to go. And I think that's really awesome. So I'm excited for this community that we're going to hopefully build. And I really hope that people are able to take positive things away from it, that they can use in their own life. For sure, for sure. We're so excited and are looking forward to a long term relationship. So our first official release, we're going to have this intro episode and we're also going to have four other episodes that you can binge right off the bat so you can get a sample of what the future is going to look like for us. So go ahead, listen to him. If you're interested, we really appreciate any interaction we can get from you guys and any feedback. And obviously All the reviews and the follows also go to help build our business so we can reach more people. So keep that in mind. We would really love it. If you would leave us a review, follow, subscribe, or just message us, say hi. We'd love that too, but yeah, thank you so much for joining our intro episode. We really hope you enjoy the other episodes we released with our launch. Yay. And going forward, you will get an episode from us every Tuesday. So be on the lookout for it. Bye bye ladies. Bye. Thanks for joining us. Take care. Bye.