Joanna Gaines Jokes About ‘All Those Years I Was a Bit of a Dud’ to Chip as She Embraces Her Adventurous Phase

In early October, Joanna Gaines signed up for her first-ever horseback riding lesson. “I have a dream to barrel race,” the Magnolia Network star tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story.

Yes, that’s the rodeo event in which a rider attempts to zoom around a set of drums in a clover leaf pattern in the fastest time possible. At a professional level that can be about 15 seconds.

“Maybe we should call it barrel trotting,” she hedges.

Though Joanna may not be the consummate cowgirl—in fact, she admits, she’s “terrified” of horses—the sport is the latest in a series of adventurous hobbies she’s picked up.

Last year it was beekeeping, which forced her to face another lifelong fear. “Now we have honeybees here at the farm and that’s my favorite thing to do,” she says. In August, she and her youngest son Crew, 5, harvested ten gallons of honey on their Waco, Texas property. (They also share Drake, 18, Ella, 17, Duke, 15, and Emmie, 13.)

Before that she rediscovered her childhood love of roller skating and began speeding around their Waco farm and even the set of her cooking show. Now she and husband Chip, 49, are producing a roller skating dance competition show that will debut in early 2024 on Max.

Fans of Fixer Upper and its spinoffs know the designer, 45, as the reasonable, restrained half of the famous couple, compared to Chip’s natural jokester. But its a yoke Joanna’s consciously been trying to shake.

“I’m like, ‘Yeah, I have a kid in college, I also have a five-year-old and I want to do things.’ I don’t want to wake up [one day] and say, ‘I worked my butt off.’ I want to wake up and say, ‘All the things that you said you’ve always wanted to do, did you do those?'” she explains.

Her outlook on life started to shift when she was writing her memoir, The Stories We Tell. “I think that journey brought a lot of healing and wholeness. And so when you wake up feeling a little more whole than you did the day before, you see the world differently,” she says.

It’s also changed how she views her past self, and allowed her to joke about her old ways.

“It is more fun to be married to a Chip, than a Joanna. So I’m sorry for all those years where I was a bit of a dud,” she says with a laugh to her husband of 20 years.

“You were a stick in the mud for quite some time,” Chip adds with a smile. “You’re really starting to catch your second wind.”

Chip, for his part, has willingly slowed down on his prankster ways of late. “I feel like Benjamin Button, like Jo and I are in this beautiful moment, we’re kind of passing each other.”

“You’ve rubbed off on me,” Joanna notes.
Chip is more than happy to be her “cheerleader.” “It’s fun to watch your partner grow and evolve, and become stronger and better,” he says. “I’m so proud of her.’

source: people.com