Small Town Not Small Minds

Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean? Dream interpreters, Alix and Amy use this episode to discover the meaning behind significant dreams they had in their youth. For What’s Up this week, we challenge each other to some fun tasks to break the monotony. We talk about the super power of our choice in this week’s Jar of Questions.

This week we are honoured to have Amy’s childhood friend Dr. Paulina Johnson on our show. As an Indigenous Studies Professor at Concordia University, Paulina helps us navigate conversations around Inigenous Peoples by sharing personal narratives, truth, and a whole lot of heart. Thank you Dr. J for your time and knowledge. What’s Up this week? We talk about the viral show, The Circle. Alix is obse...

We rock into our 26th episode with country music singer, Ryan Lindsay. Born and raised in Wainwright, we knew Ryan would be a great guest to have on the show. Ryan shares how he stays grounded, inspired, and where he’s headed next. Tune in for a great interview and be sure to check @ryanlindsay on all platforms, including TikTok! For What’s Up we reflect on our hometowns and share a social story f...

Our conversation this week is about identity and how we can balance wearing different hats with Dana Smith, a small town inspiration from Wainwright, Alberta. She challenges listeners to take risks while trusting in the process. This authentic connection makes us think more about the inspiration that presents itself in the individuals that we know. For What’s Up we jam to our new intro, it’s an ou...

This week we take on dating and it’s not even the month of love. Living the single life, Amy and Alix ‘dive in’ to their past relationships to see what patterns and behaviours we’ve kicked and what ones we’re still hanging onto. We inadvertently used nautical metaphors a little too much, so jump in with us 🌊 In What’s Up we talk about childhood movies that still haunt us to this day. The Jar of Q...

Girl crush, have you used this term? Alix and Amy unpack what girl crush means and how it can be harmful to the LGBTQ+ community, they share their perspective and insights to seeing how this term can trivialize the queer experience and unnecessarily sexualize women. Alix challenges you to think more critically about the use of the term and the motivation behind it. For What’s Up we talk about how...

The A+ gals navigate a vulnerable topic: Alix’s journey with depression. Alix speaks candidly about her experience and what happened after going on antidepressants. Spoiler alert: now on meds for over a year, Alix feels like her true self again! For What’s Up, we throw it back to those good ol’ days playing MASH with our friends and also meet a potential mind reader. In Jar of Questions, we want t...

Amy & Alix recommend some of our favourite books, movies, and tv shows for you to binge and then we can all talk about them together! We also cover some really important topics including but not limited to trimming your nose hairs. Literature mentioned: ⁃ City of Girls - Elizabeth Gilbert ⁃ Outliers - Malcom Gladwell ⁃ Gillian Flynn ⁃ Nikita Gill ⁃ Normal People - Sally Rooney ⁃ From Here To Etern...

Ever wonder if you’re on the right path? Amy and Alix get vulnerable in this episode, talking about where we are and what we want our futures to look like. A conversation we’re sure many people have had before, we think it’s hella relatable. We also have guests Terra and Michelle from podcast Murder & Merlot join us for Jar of Questions. Be sure to check out their podcast if you also love a good m...

Want to learn how to make your vocabulary more gender inclusive? Amy and Alix talk about some of the things we do as educators to help our language be more gender neutral. Of course we also have a fun game we teach you to practice they/them pronouns. Play along with us, A+ followers!

To cap off our month of love we asked Mike Lawlor to give us some insight on his business built on love, Lawlor Jewlery. Mike encapsulates the energy we envisioned for our podcast. He has his roots in small town life, he is a great role model as a husband and dad, and he even drops our trademark word “journey” unironically in the interview! Be sure to check out Lawlor for some STUNNING pieces 💎

The month of love continues with this week’s episode focusing on the bond between siblings. Amy’s sister Lorrie joined us to highlight their relationship. The Smith sisters are closely connected, supportive, and fun loving (and they sure do like to talk!!).

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, Alix and Amy wanted to put together a special episode on love. We brought of special guest Lluvs to take part in a game show “Could You Love Me”. Amy (or should we say Mama Sugar Lips) hosts a series of questions to prove how well Alix and Lluvs know each other. These two rad women were brought together by their mutual love for Fernie and hope to meet...

Our first episode of love surrounds the most important love of all: yourself! Amy and Alix play spin the bottle (no, not THAT spin the bottle) to ask each other questions about loving yourself. Follow along as we talk about our inner dialogue, actions, and intentions to help us all reflect on our own relationships with ourselves.

Moral dilemmas are so interesting. Even though Alix and Amy are on the same page with many things, we definitely have some different opinions on these moral dilemmas. Listen to our episode to see where you land and head over to our Instagram @smalltownnotsmallminds to answer the questions yourselves.

We interview Amy’s teaching colleague and friend, Matthew. He is a model in many ways. As a teacher, he is a model shaping young minds. As a citizen he leads by example, one could call him a model citizen. And lastly, he’s a literal model.

Bra burners. Man Haters. Crazy. Extremists. Yup, you guessed it, we are talking about FEMINISM. A word so simple, but somehow is still surrounded by stigma. In this episode, Alix and Amy bust some myths around feminism with their new game: Wheel of Feminism

Amy and Alix talk to guest CJ Oprea who owns and operates CrossFit Stettler. What started out as a podcast about fitness turned into an inspiring dialogue of how we have the power to make changes in our own lives, all we need is the right mindset.

Amy and Alix ring in the new year with an episode all about goal setting! Listen to hear some of the ways we say goodbye to the olde year and set intentions for the new year. If you are looking for some of the reflection resources we mentioned in this episode, check out: http://thehappinessplanner.com/ or http://yearcompass.com/

Happy Holidays! It’s the last podcast of 2020! Your fav gals Amy and Alix have a mixed bag of topics for this episode ranging from Christmas carol controversies to Millennials vs Gen Z. With that familiar back and forth banter that our listeners have come to love, we’ve wrapped up our first season of the podcast with a neat little bow.

Episode 8 is all about self care. In some ways this is talked about so much and in other ways it’s not talked about enough! There are many different areas of self care, some you may not have thought about before. Amy and Alix talk about each category and what we do to look after ourselves. How do you rate your self care?

Names. Who knew there was so much to talk about? Alix and Amy (or should I say the McSmith sisters) delve into how names contribute to our identity, the cultural impact they have, and you’ll finally know where each of us stand on Elon Musk’s naming abilities.

This week Amy and Alix talk about their favourite things to do to keep busy and have a social life ( in a small or big town). The mix of Amy’s great ideas, paired with Alix’s step by step friend making process is a sure to give you at least one new way to spend your time. Also, if you were hoping this podcast would give you some insight into our love lives our space metaphors are out of this world...

Part two of our get woke folx series. We, along with our friend Kalli, cover the last half of our LGBTQ+ vocabulary, answer which animal we identify with the most, and share the music we’ve been blasting in our house for the past week.

It’s time to get woke folx! This week, Amy & Alix, along with special guest Kalli, play salad-bowl-word-toss. Haven’t heard of it before? That’s because we just made it up! We cover some basic definitions you might hear regarding the LGBTQ+ community. We hope to equip you with some basic vocabulary and conscientious understanding. Let us know what you’ve learned by emailing us at smalltownnotsmall...