Until you’ve experienced it, you can’t fathom how much patience is required for traveling—like, a lot of traveling. For example, when you’ve been traveling for 14 days, halfway around the world and back. (Big, deep intake of breath, eyes closed, slowly release breath…ahhhh…that’s my yoga stuff right there.).

At this point, I’ve been gone for 14 days. I’m on a flight back from San Jose, California. I’m in line for the revolting airplane restroom, and, no I’m not in first class—I’m in coach! We’re about an hour-and-a-half into the flight, the flight attendants had already dashed though twice, so by now I’ve read a few chapters in my latest leadership book and decide to take a nap. I’m zonked out; until my sweet daughter Jaylee wakes me up with her soft tap, tap with her little girl finger on my arm. I stretched a big stretch, then, of course, I realize I need to use the restroom. Of course, the line is five people deep and taking forever! I mean, really, we’re on a plane here people, what are you doing in there? (That was a rhetorical question because I really didn’t, don’t and would never really want to know the answer to that question.)

I start to look around and notice all the trash on the floor and how messy people are being, and how they’re just, you know, doing a lot of not caring. Then I notice the combined stench of too many people crammed into a confined space and a tiny airplane bathroom with too many people using it (I hope nobody is eating right now, I’m truly sorry if you are.). I feel my temperament begin to dive into the red zone, then a man tries to cut in front of me and I say, “Hey, I am in line!” I did this with my sharp, sassy voice, y’all, because, what the…?

Finally, two people come out and four more people get in line behind “the cutter.” Oh, how I’m missing being in first class at this point! My attitude is purely negative now, like a physical thing, I can feel it all over me! Then, I feel a small tap, tap and turn around, and the man who was trying to take cuts, “the cutter,” asks me if I’d like a piece of gum out of his brand new pack. I said, “No thank you, but thank you for thinking to offer me one!”

As I faced back toward the bathroom and away from the man, I had to giggle at myself—I actually had a huge smile after that. Come on, Lo! Really? Let’s get mad over the line for the bathroom—really, what else do you have to do for the next three hours on this plane? I really told myself get a life!

It’s so easy to let our emotions get the best of us. In those emotional moments, it’s so important to ask, “Really, do I have it that bad?” I just spent 10 days in a country where some people don’t even have a bathroom with running water, or one that even works as well as a repulsive airplane bathroom. At the end of the day, we all need to offer more grace and try for more patience. Find the smile and the kindness in our hearts for others, especially on a plane (or a bus or a subway, you know, any closed-in space where you might want to just snap!).

There will come a time that those little tap, taps that were waking me from my amazing nap will no longer happen, because my sweet baby girls will be all grown up and gone. There will come a time in my life when I won’t be able to travel, I’ll be too old and feeble. All of these things, they’re transient—they’re here, then they’re gone—whether good or bad, nothing lasts forever. Really think about that: nothing lasts forever.

So, embrace life to the fullest, even if it’s messy, chaotic, grubby, not pretty—there will be always someone there to offer you a fresh piece of gum, from a brand new pack.

–Lorinda Van Newkirk

There are places we go that become so treasured that we return to them again and again. They warm our souls, light our fires and elicit pure peace. And even when we’re not there, in quiet moments we find our minds drifting back to “that place,” because, however briefly, those reflections bring back the feelings we experience when we’re there.

Lo blogged the other day about her “nirvana,” which is the barn. Well, that got me thinking about my happy place, which is Key West, Florida. I love that place so much, it’s where I plan to retire. Seriously.

There’s nothing I don’t love about the Keys. It’s bright, sunny and quite funky, and those are all things I adore! There’s also the beach, the expanse of sky blue water, that expanse of sky blue…well, sky—its vastness is uninterrupted by people or buildings or traffic, just water and sky. The grit of the sand under my bare feet, the contrast of my brightly painted toenails against the neutral beach, the constant mild, warm, salty winds—it is perfection.

I’ve always considered myself a free spirit, and the first time I ever visited Key West,  I saw and felt why it’s often described as a haven for free spirits. It’s laid back, a little lazy and a lot crazy! There are chickens everywhere, just running amok—absolutely hilarious. You can be sitting at any outdoor restaurant, with chickens zipping around under that tables and roosters cock-a-doodle-doing right behind you. And what’s not to love about restaurants that serve breakfast until 2 p.m., like one of my all-time faves, Blue Heaven? The seafood is plucked from the surrounding waters, so fresh and so sweet and you can eat it at breakfast, lunch and dinner—it’s so good washed down with ice-cold beer.

And did I mention the clothes? It’s shorts weather almost all the time. Swimsuits, flowing cover-ups, flip-flops (who doesn’t love those?), live music, food fresh from the ocean, staying up late, getting up late, no time clock, just a total escape. Y’all, I’m already mentally packing my bags!

So, this is where I go to restore my spirit! And when I’m not actually there, the Keys are still with me, and I visit there frequently in my head. Does that make me sound a little crazy?

~Amy Moorhouse

So we’ve launched this new kick-ass line called “Rope Like a Girl^®.” We’re so pumped at Gypsy Soule^® because we’ve teamed with world-class roper Lari Dee Guy on these Rope Like a Girl^® tees and caps. Any time we have the opportunity to support women, we jump at it, and we felt strongly that Rope Like a Girl^®, which was Lari Dee’s brainchild, was a perfect fit for Gypsy Soule^®.

So, a lot of y’all might not know who Lari Dee Guy is, and that’s OK! I’ll tell you a little about her. Lari Dee is a Soule Sister who also believes in girl power. She grew up on her family’s working ranch in Abilene, Texas. She started rodeoing when she was a little thing, and took it upon herself to learn to rope so she could compete with her older brother. She began winning roping competitions when she was only 8 years old! She continued her awesomeness throughout college and won two National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) championships. She still competes some, but years ago she started a roping school and travels all over the United States and the world putting on roping clinics. Y’all can check out her website here: larideeguy.com

I wanted to write this blog about Rope Like a Girl^® and the strength of women, especially after watching the Oscars the other night, because…Patricia Arquette. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Arquette received an Oscar for her performance in the movie, “Boyhood.” She took a few seconds of her speech to promote equal pay for women. She pissed off a lot of people, but, whatever. She brought up a salient point, which is that, even in this day and age, when we’ve fought for equality for minorities, for gays, for you name it, nobody has picked up the torch and fought for women for equal pay for equal work. I guess people didn’t like that she used an awards show to make a quasi-political speech—if you call asking for equal pay a political issue. Because, basically, whether you’re a liberal or a conservative, neither party has championed the issue of equal pay for women. So, even though, yeah, it was an awards show and people shouldn’t use it as a platform to blather on about unrelated issues, I still pumped my fist and said, “Yesssssss!” after her speech.

So, back to Rope Like a Girl^®! Here’s how the idea was hatched: Lari Dee wanted to take the saying, “Rope Like a Girl^®,” and basically flip it upside down. I snatched a quote from her that explains her thinking:

“I admit, I’d said ‘I roped like a girl,’ on days when I didn’t score well, when I took a bad shot from more coils back than I can really reach, or when I just flat missed a steer I shouldn’t have. But did how I roped have anything to do with the fact that I was a girl? Heck no. I always knew that. I have always believed that, as a girl, I could do anything in the world I wanted to. Why had I been using, and hearing, ‘rope like a girl,’ my whole life, as a negative?”

Lari Dee got fired up when she started thinking about all the girls who attend her roping schools who believe, in their sweet little 9-or-10-year old hearts, that they’ll grow up to be competitive ropers, possibly competing at the National Finals Rodeo. As a woman, it is kind of disheartening to hear ‘rope like a girl,’ or ‘throw like a girl.’ As a little girl, it’s so much worse and defeating for them—kind of a dream crusher. It’s not that we want girls to defeat boys or do better, we just want them to be the best they can be and have equal chances at success.

So, we launched Rope Like A Girl^® to erase doubt in little girls and grown women! The Rope Like a Girl^® logo incorporates the world’s toughest stone, a diamond, as a reminder to women of their strength. Down the road we plan to design some other “Like a Girl” tees and caps, so keep those peepers peeled for “Hunt Like a Girl^®,” “Race Like a Girl^®,” “Show Like a Girl^®” and “Jump Like a Girl^®.”

Because, girls, we can!

–Lorinda