Ginger and Ginseng

In this episode, Sharon and Eunice reflect on their 10+ years of marriage to their husbands and share the lessons they have learned so far. Here are some of the questions they dished on: What advice would you give a newlywed now? What was the most shocking truth about marriage? What's the secret sauce to your marriage that's made it work thus far? What got you through the tough times? They say pick and choose your battles,  which ones do you pick and choose? What are you still working on or refining now? How has COVID changed your marriage? How do you do date nights? This is the 10th and final episode of this season and we will be back with a new season in the summer!

It's 5pm and you're dead tired either from work or it's one of those long days with the kids and you're feeling hungry but you're not feeling take-out. What is your go-to quick-fix dinner? What can you cook that you can make in 20 minutes, and it doesn't leave alot of dirty pots and pans and dishes? What are you going to feed your kids that's semi-nutritious? Sharon and Eunice exchange quick and easy dinner ideas. Similar to our episode on banchan hacks, we present to you, meal hacks! #quickfixmeal #lunchideas #dinnerideas #easymeals #koreanlunchideas #koreandinnerideas #koreanfood #koreameal ideas #hungry #hangry #letseat

One of the more bewildering parts of parenting is what we're supposed to do when our child lies. As parents, we try to teach our children to be truthful and honest. But when a child lies, it can seem like a personal negative judgment on our parenting abilities. So how are we supposed to confront our children when they lie? How do we point out the lie not in a condemning way, but a restorative way? And how do we convey to them the seriousness of lying that it's a sin and teach them to always tell the truth, especially to parents? How do we teach them how to ask for forgiveness from others and also from God? This episode is about what actions we can take with young children that will teach them to stop lying and to be honest.  In this episode, Sharon and Eunice share how they navigated these waters.

This episode is loosely inspired by the Serenity Prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and courage to change the things I can." We asked each other to fill in the blank to these two questions: "I need to be okay with..." and "I need to..." The first question is about acknowledgment and acceptance and the second is about action and pivoting.  We categorized our answers into 3 main areas: COVID, family, and work. We hope you enjoy this thoughtful reflection and that it will inspire you to also create your own list to share with the rest of the GG tribe!  #serenityprayer #ineedtobeokaywith #ineedto #koreanamericanwoman #koreanamericanwoman #learnkorean #asianamericanwomen #asianamericanwoman #korean #koreanmama #koreanmom #koreanmoms #koreanmommy #koreanmommies  

We are heard of dad bod, but what’s the umma bod, or an ajumma bod? You know it’s happening when you realize your mid section and thighs are starting to look like yo mamas! In this episode we talk a little bit about the aging process and how we are dealing with this natural and inevitable part of life. Here we talk about our goals to embrace a healthy lifestyle to age gracefully.

Thanksgiving is around the corner and in the midst of Covid and uncertainty in politics, how do we maintain a mind-full of thanks, gratitude and peace? An average person has 60-70,000 thoughts a day, so how do we center all those thoughts? A grounding thought can influence the rest of the day, our attitude, our mindset, and affect how we instill a beautiful mindset in our children. The energy we put out is often the energy our kids are gobbling up! In this episode we talk about Christian yoga, workouts, meditating, priming, and more! And if you want more info on Cindy Yang, you can check out @lets_illuminate on Instagram!

That's right today we are talking about our Korean guilty pleasures... our closet addictions that we're not the most proud of, but I'm sure you all can relate. So we've segmented today's episode into 3 categories for discussion 1) Food 2) Dramas or Shows 3) Kpop.

Today we'll be talking about speaking Korean at home...but specifically teaching our kids Korean!  This is probably something that differs from one Korean American household to another depending on who lives in the house or who you are married to!  For example, Sharon is married to a KA and speaks English to her husband, and Eunice is married to a Korean Korean and speaks mostly Korean with her husband.  We dive deep into how we spoke Korean in our childhood, our Korean speaking goals for our kids, how we feel about Korean school, and Korean learning resources that are available.

This episode is for our listeners out there that currently have a newborn or infant. We want to acknowledge and recognize those mothers and give them some love and encouragement. So we see all the mamas (and papas)... it’s hard, tiring, and even boring sometimes! It’s okay to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. Everyday will not be like a pampers or huggies commercial. We have to remember that when we gave birth to our child, 3 new creatures were born that day- the child, the mother, and the father were all born at the same exact moment! We hope that this episode will encourage you to not only survive but thrive as a loving parent!

We are kicking off season 3 of the Ginger and Ginseng Podcast with our first episode on Virtual School and distance learning. What structure or plan do you have for your kids? How much of it is independent work v hand-holding? We share tips on how we’ve been homeschooling and distance learning and also how we’ve been keeping our kids social and active. Virtual learning is not without its challenges but we end this episode on a high note by sharing one plus of distance learning!

This is our final episode of season 2 before we take a summer break and start back up in the fall for season 3. We talk about what our COVID summer plans look with online VBS, disinfecting airBNB homes, online summer camps, masked play dates, etc.

In this week’s episode, we talk about how to be strong, courageous, and resilient during COVID and how to instill these truths to our kids and grown-ups alike! We also introduce a children’s book that teaches this message in Eunice’s new book, Mama What If?: The Pirate Treasure.

With Covid, there can be days where it gets to us but today we wanted to do a little uplifting and partying it up with some 90’s Kpop music. Each of us shares our favorite Korean 90s songs and talk about what memories these songs trigger.

With Covid, we have been doing a lot more cooking at home so we wanted to share what we’ve been cooking and/or eating during this shelter-in-place. We made a list of meal hacks that’s been working for us. We hope that you can find some inspiration from what we’ve been cooking in our kitchens, how we’ve been shopping for groceries, and how we’ve been managing the crazy amount of dirty dishes! We end this episode on our final thoughts on what have been the benefits of home cooking. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we had recording it!

With the emergency closure of schools due to the Corona Virus, we had to quickly pivot to homeschooling for our kids! Sharon and Eunice share how they’ve been adjusting to working and schooling kids from home. We dish on helpful educational online resources, sample school schedules, zoom play dates, and conducting online classes of extracurricular activities! We end this episode on a lighter note to reflect on the bright side of all the school closures and stay-at-home guidelines and how it has given us an opportunity to spend more family time together.

In this episode, we talk about how life looked like when we were both full-time working moms. We also talk about what how and why we went from working full time to quitting or working part time and what that’s been like. In this season in our life, we are both considering going back to work full time. In doing so, we talk aloud about our thoughts and considerations we’ve been wrestling with the decision to work more. We wrap up by discussing what are the basic conditions that we would want met if we were to go back to work full time. Please join us in this candid discussion we have about the confessions and diaries of a working mom! #gingerandginsengpodcast

Self-care is important in our busy lives juggling parenthood, careers, marriage, and whatever else may be on our plate. What do you do to take time and do something for yourself? How do we take care of ourselves when we’re busy taking care of others? We hope you can pick up some ideas from our conversation and start carving out time to do some self-care!

Sharon and Eunice plan for spring break family trip ideas. From day trip ideas, to longer road trips, to trips by airplane... we cover a range of family trip ideas that they’ve personally been on or compiled trip ideas from friends! Happy planning your own spring break vacay!

It is flu season! So what do you do when you, your kids, and your family get the flu? Sharon and Eunice share what they do when they get the flu, how to cope, and steps they take prevent getting sick in the first place.

Host Ginger and Ginseng are both in our mid 30s and we wanted to write a letter to our 20-something selves. Knowing what we know now, what would we have done differently? What did we do right in our 20s that we are now reaping the benefits of in our 30s?

This is a very short, bonus episode where Sharon gives a quick update on the status of Season 2!

Happy Holidays from the Ginger and Ginseng Podcast! We are wrapping up Season 1 and will be back on Jan 22 to launch Season 2! Thank you to all our listeners for your support and encouragement.

We are talking about our do more and do less list for 2020. Around this time of year people start setting New Years Resolutions but we want to focus on how to prioritize by doing more or doing less.

In this week’s episode, we are talking about holiday hacks but specifically holiday gift giving hacks! We share what and how we take care of getting gifts for our kids, spouse, sibling, parents, in-laws, friends, and friends’ kids. We also talk about what to get and what not to get for teachers. We share what kinds of gifts we’ve given and received in Secret Santa, White Elephant, and gift exchanges. We also talk about opting out of giving gifts and just focusing on the true meaning of Christmas.

In this episode, Sharon shares about her recent family trip to Korea with kids. She gives travel tips on how to survive the flight and jet lag; how she got around with little ones (subway vs. taxi); kid friendly places like trendy, upscale kids cafes (PIM) and museums (Children’s museum at the Children’s Grand Park); cultural must see places like the Kyungbok palace, Korean folk village, and the Namsan Tower; amusement parks( Everland, Lotteland, Seoul Land) ; shopping malls (Coex, Lotte mall, Shinsegae); outside markets (Dondaemun) and more! We also give a list of resources to give you some tools to plan for your next family trip with kids to Seoul, South Korea!

Sharon is married to a Korean-American and Eunice is married to a Korean native. We dish on what it’s like to be married to our husbands and confirm or dispel stereotypes of being married to a Korean-American vs. Korean fob.

We talk about how we celebrate Thanksgiving (what our Thanksgiving table looks like) , 추석, how we try to instill gratitude in our kids, and share what we are grateful for this year.

We share our banchan hacks and tips and how we make or get Korean banchans on the dinner table every night. Hosts are @eunicekangbooks and @mrs.sharonlee from @mightyfortresspress. Please subscribe and leave us a comment on this episode on @mightyfortresspress