Mollie
Hello everybody. It is Tuesday, September 30th. We are on the last day of September and more importantly, the last day of Save Your Photos month. Today I am so excited to be here and we're going to talk about the celebration of photo organization. There are so many highs and lows to organizing photos, but the beauty of it all is when you get to enjoy the memories, especially with your family.
Mollie
And for that reason, I have my sister joining me today. Let me bring her on. This is Rosie and she's my my favorite sister. Even though I get the fave sister headline down below. Hello, Rosie. Go ahead and introduce yourself.
Rosie
Well hello everyone, I am the sister and Mollie is my favorite sister and also my only sister. And I just love that. Even though I don't like organizing, pictures are paying a lot of attention that Mollie does. And so what I've noticed is I can always ask her for a picture. So I thought, to celebrate this, we should just challenge her a little bit. She doesn't know all of the details here, but she's going to have 30 minutes to find 15 pictures and I have not.
Then the nicest with my descriptions, but I am thinking of very specific pictures for most of these. She gets two passes. She can't come back to them later, but she only gets to pass on to us. So we'll see if she can get through all 15 and 30 minutes. What do you think, Mollie?
Mollie
I think you're crazy, but I'm happy to be put to the test. And before you throw the first one at me, I just want to let anybody know who's watching this. Please don't hesitate to leave a question in the chat. If you like. We'll try to answer them at the end. If I'm not completely dead from the challenges my sister throws at me. But let's just see what happens. Here.
Rosie
All right, Rosie, throw your first one at me. Are you ready for me to start the timer?
Mollie
Oh, boy. Yeah. Okay.
Rosie
All right. Your first picture is the cat cake.
Mollie
Oh, my sister wants me to find a photo of, a birthday cake that her mother would make for us. Oh. Back in, it would be in the late 70s. So I'll go ahead and share my screen, and we'll see if we can find the cat cake. I am just showing you here the photos that I scanned from our mom.
We do have a gap in here between 74 and 78, but I suspect that the cat cake might be in here. If it's not in here, then I don't have it scanned yet. So let's just look in our 78 to 81 album. And, Rosie, don't hesitate to throw out if you want to see a picture closer up that I passed through.
So, like, I know I've got like two minutes per photo. So where is that cat cake picture? I feel like, I feel like that cat cake. I feel like I've showed it to you before, so I'm hoping it's in here. We're going through Girl Scouts, and actually, I can't help but just notice this photo. We used to have to paint the trim on the house, and our mom love the the red.
Oh, and stripping that. Stripping that paint. Horrible. It was. Yeah. So I just made a classic error, and I got caught up in the memories instead of the task at hand. But look, look at that. She's sitting in the windowsill anyway, so I don't see the cat picture here, which makes me wonder, let me just scroll back.
I'm going to go to 81 to 84. I think that's really too late. But sometimes the photo albums, the pictures weren't always in the right place. Well, there's a six year old. Happy birthday. Okay, there you are. Let's just, I think this is more the right time frame. I do, I think this is more of the right time frame, because at six, I wouldn't have been probably old enough to remember it.
And I clearly remember the cat cake. Okay. I don't know, I, I have been through these enough. Oh, look at this. Here.
Rosie
All right, well, you are you are at almost three minutes on this one. Do you want to use one of your passes early in the game?
Mollie
I'm gonna. I might have to. We'll just go to the end of this one. I bet I bet it's it's in the non scanned ones. And, And that's the beauty I'm going to just say this is not a bad situation when you can't find a photo. That means you need to put it on your list and track it down. So anyway, I'm guessing, yeah, I think we're beyond the time when that would have been, your birthday cake. Okay, so I've taken. Okay. One pass. Shoot. Okay. All right. That's okay.
Rosie
All right. We are talking dad's hobbies here. I'm going to be nice to you. You can do metal detecting coins or banjo, and this is one of the few that I don't have a specific picture in mind, but. I know there are some for at least the banjo.
Mollie
Yeah. The banjo. The banjo picture is a fun one. Here it is. Oh, and I just want you to not notice our beautiful mother there. This is as redneck as you can be. We're up at our family cottage, and he's playing the banjo out on the pier while my mom's getting a ten.
Rosie
All right, I got it. Next one. All right. You can only look in Forever. You cannot look. You know, you can't go to find this one where I know it lives.
Mollie
Okay? 0404 not found. 404. Not found.
Rosie
All right. This is a picture. Okay, so first of all, we use Forever here for anybody who's catching this later Forever is our online way of preserving pictures and sharing them. And, Rosie's mentioning that there's a picture that she or I must have taken some time here at Pixologie that has 4 or 4 not found.
Mollie
So think about your website. Yeah, I'm okay. There is a picture that we use when you go to the Pixologie website, and you type in a link that doesn't fit.
Rosie
Yeah, yeah, yeah I know which one that is.
Mollie
You just go, okay, I get it. I'm in. It doesn't have the words in it. It's the picture of Rosie being completely frustrated at her computer. So let's just see if I can bring that up here for you.
The funny thing about this picture is it was taken back in, like, 2014 with someone else's phone, so we can't actually — I don't have the full version of it — but here it is for you.
So I bring this picture up because I feel like through the Pixologie journey, I myself have had a journey, and in the very early days of Pixologie, this is quite literally how I felt about photos.
And it's funny because I really did feel that way about photos — like, anybody can ask you — I was very anti: “I don't care, I don't want to see them, I don't want to know.”
Rosie
All right. Okay, I got a point here. Yep. You got a point there. So you're right. Two out of the 15 now, and you have 23 minutes left.
Okay, I want the funniest pictures of the shed or the outhouse up north.
Mollie
Okay, well, I know I'm not being the nicest here, but if you need a hint, I'll give you a hint, because I am thinking of a fairly specific picture. All right, well, let's, let me just see.
I need to get into the right photo album. So there actually be two that would qualify here. Yep. I believe that I have a tag for the cottage and, it's just going to take me a second to log in because I'm working with a couple different Forever accounts — one is my personal, one is Pixologies, and one is my mom's.
So, I'm wasting some precious time here, but I think we'll find this for one of these photos that you're looking for. So here's my personal one. I'm going to go to the tags, and I just search for “cottage.”
We had this great place up in Crandon, and I think for the most part my pictures are taken here. So no matter what the year was, I can see there's the kitty we found in the city.
Kenny. But that outhouse got torn down, and there were some family things that went into that, you know, just so that we could have a toilet actually installed inside so we didn’t have to use the outhouse anymore.
So here’s a few of the pictures. We've got our mom trying to crawl up, and I feel like there’s a video of her. Like, oh — here. Is this the one that you're thinking of?
Rosie
That is one of them. Yeah. Look at — and we have all of us. Yep. Look at — my husband is so young looking there.
Mollie
There actually is a video of her climbing up, but you did not ask for that, so I'm not going to go pull that off.
Rosie
Yeah. The other one I was thinking of is when I locked her in and I rode my bike down the driveway when it still had the wood stuff in it.
Mollie
Yeah, yeah.
Rosie
And I rode my bike down it, and I went flying. She was in there — she couldn't get out — and all we saw was me tumbling over my bike down the driveway.
Mollie
What I did and responded, “Oh no, you locked her in!”
Rosie
I locked her in. And then you fell down the hill with your bike. That's quite a hill.
Mollie
I don't think I have a picture that shows quite what that looked like. There are pictures of her somewhere locked in and me standing next to her with my bike after she was out, but not actually of me tumbling down. So. All right, well, that is a win.
Rosie
Okay. All right. Next. The best picture ever of Hannah and Alex together.
Mollie
Well, I feel like there's probably a few options for that, but I know the best way for me to get pictures of Hannah and Alex together is to type in “Hannah,” then filter her, and then type in “Alex Berchtold.” This is showing me all the pictures the two of them are in.
Now I'm going to change the order — show the oldest first — because I think we're talking about, you know, a picture when they were younger. I've always loved these two, but I know that there is a picture that you took, Rosie.
Rosie
Well, I'd probably — you know, I would be referring to this one.
Mollie
This is the — yep. That is your favorite.
Rosie
You know the full photo. Okay, there you go.
Mollie
Okay. That was pretty quick.
Rosie
All right, all right. You are at 19 minutes.
Rosie
Okay. This one — this one's going to be harder for you, I think. A pet skunk.
Mollie
Oh, I know where that is, because — oh, shoot. I thought this one was going to be harder. Yep. My best friend in grade school had a pet skunk. And she moved away. But when I went to go visit her, we got to — I got to hold her skunk.
Oh, right here. Darn it. Right. There she is. There it is.
Rosie
All right, next to haul. All right, all right. You're making up some time here.
Rosie
All right, this one's a little bit — I'm going to be — I think you're going to get what I'm about to say. The effing tulip.
Mollie
Tulips! You remember the photo contest I used to run?
Rosie
Oh yeah.
Mollie
Yeah, I’m not a photographer. Rosie is an accomplished, professional photographer. And one year I went to Salt Lake City — my favorite photo — and I just had the right angle with my camera, and I won her photography contest. I won the contest that she ran at her work with this photo.
It's just an unbelievable memory and a moment that I actually looked like an artist.
Rosie
I think you’re just — you’re not putting that exactly like I would put it. I would say I would have sat there and adjusted the angles and lighting, whereas you went click — and it was perfect. And this was not the only example — that stupid silhouette too!
Mollie
Yeah. So I won a couple of those contests inadvertently, but you helped me learn how to use my camera better, and that’s how I got some of these photos later on.
Rosie
So, anyway, I got you there, Rosie.
Mollie
Yeah. You did. You totally did.
Rosie
Okay. Christmas ornament making.
Mollie
Now, I don’t know — it doesn’t have to be making, but at least pictures of these ornaments. And while you look, I’ll give the background. Every year, my mom and my dad would make a Christmas ornament, and they would use them as Christmas gifts for various different people.
And they did things from tooling to beading — with the little angel — and all these different things that they made, including a little cardinal at Vex that was actually a magnet.
Rosie
And I don’t remember how many of these there are, but there are quite a few. And we each actually have a box of them, and some of them might be on that Christmas tree — but you would have to be able to tell us which ones are.
Mollie
I didn’t notice any right off the top of my head. Oh, on the chickens — your mom and her chickens that she used to make!
Rosie
Yeah, I guess we should — you know, any of the roosters, in addition to the ornaments.
Mollie
Oh, and here’s one with the silhouette that this would have been one my dad took. Yeah. She was always making things. So here’s another picture of the Christmas tree. That right here is the sled. They made sleds.
Rosie
One more. Yep. They made sleds. They had snowmen. They made two — I thought — and angels.
Mollie
Yeah. Oh, nope, there! And they made this one in here somewhere — a Care Bear, too.
Rosie
Oh that’s right, the fabric Care Bear!
Mollie
Yeah. So let me just scroll through here. This would be a good topic, you know, to take the pictures in. But if you see — what, go ahead?
Rosie
She really liked the Care Bears for a while there.
Mollie
Yeah. So here she even has a medicine cabinet full of the little miniatures.
Rosie
It’s her happy cabinet! Oh, I need to see that again. Oh, there it is down one.
Mollie
Oh, yeah. She’s looking really stern. I don’t know why — she’s actually making it! She’s putting some awesome…
Rosie
Yeah, she would sometimes stay up—
Mollie
Oh, oh — my first star with what? Okay. Two things: I won a contest with that — and it’s just horribly horrible-looking.
Rosie
And then go — yeah, what’s bird on the dog on the pier? I think that’s a merchandiser.
Mollie
Oh, yeah. Look at that. Okay.
Rosie
All right, so you’ve got Christmas ornaments.
Mollie
All right.
Rosie
I don’t know if this exists, so if it doesn’t and you know it doesn’t, you let me know. I’ll come up with a quick different one. Racing, or something to do with racing and the boys.
Mollie
Yeah. Let’s see. I’m in my mom’s account right now, so let me bring up the other view here. Or is it this one? Okay.
So, Carol had — has — four boys, and she’s gone, which is… we really miss her a lot. So actually, what I’m going to do — I’m going to go into my Forever connections so I can view other accounts.
And I believe that I have a picture of her son’s car when they were racing, and he was at all—
Well, here’s just a precious picture. That’s Devin in the car that was sponsored by Bouchet. And there’s Mike’s name and their names on the top there.
This is one of the really cool things I think I’ve come to see — that I didn’t understand in the early days when I was banging my head on a computer — is that the way this works, with the connections in the family, is you have this ability to not keep everything from every other family, but still enjoy it and go back and look at it.
Which is why I put this one in here — because those family connections are a part of celebrating, you know, where you’re at.
And the racing was a really big deal. I mean, I babysat for the kids while they went and raced for like three or four years. I had a team jacket. We were at the races a bunch of times.
And what makes it even more meaningful is that little boy there, Devin — he died of a horrible accidental drug overdose. And having these memories to look back on and celebrate the time he was with us means so much.
Rosie
And that actually is just kind of like kismet that you came upon this picture, because that takes me to my next picture.
Mollie
Okay.
Rosie
And there is a connection — there’s another connection here. And that is my very favorite picture of Hannah. Now, you’ve got all kinds of hints here.
Mollie
She is — all right. So you’ve taken pictures of him.
Rosie
Well, so I said there is a connection to the last picture.
Mollie
Oh, okay. Okay, I get it. I get it. I got it. And you are — you’re down to ten minutes, so you should take every hint you can get.
Okay, so I’m gonna just go back to my — oops, I am in the wrong account here because I didn’t go back to mine. Just give me a second.
All right? So we go to the thousands photos, and Hannah was born in 2001. I don’t have a lot in here, but probably have that—
Well, so I have a few of Devin with Hannah. Not the one you’re probably thinking of. Devin — no, he had some wild times there, so he just had red hair there, and these are not in the best of order, because back then, we were still printing pictures.
Let’s just see — here are some of them; there are some duplicates. So now, you know, I have to do some cleanup. Here is the one you’re thinking of.
Rosie
Yes! That is the one I’m thinking of. My poor father-in-law was like, “What is that?!”
Mollie
Yeah, yeah. This is one of those photos that was shared through a phone back in 2001. So it’s a very small photo — it’s pixelated. But at some point, I think they sent it to me and said, “This was my new babysitter.”
Rosie
Yeah, this is why it’s my favorite. And that one and the one where she’s finger painting — those two are at the absolute top. That finger-painting one cracks me up too, because, like, yeah, how do you not love that?
Mollie
We had so much fun that day.
Rosie
All right. All right. So the very, very first picture that you think represents or illustrates like the very beginning of Pixologie.
Mollie
Oh, I can tell you that easily. Let me just— and I added this in because so often different pieces and parts of Pixologie have been very intertwined.
You know, when Dad was alive — people at the conference room table — he was always stopping in there. He was so proud of it.
And who was a co-founder with you?
Rosie
She is like family in a lot of ways because she was there for so many things. And it’s been around a long time now. It’s a substantial portion of your life.
Mollie
I know! We just — I think we celebrated 12 years in the summer. So when I think of the very first “head banging on the board,” and now I’m so comfortable looking at pictures.
I really was very resistant. It’s not like I go out of my way to do it, but I’m comfortable doing it versus where I really was resistant at first.
Yeah. So we started Pixologie in 2013, in July, and this was our first event. It was the Just Live — and I had our display table out there. At this point we were still taking people's projects in our homes and trying to organize and digitize them.
And this would be the very first picture that was us, like, in business.
Rosie
Very cool. I was wondering if you would have picked this one or I think there's a picture of you on the airplane when you guys conceived the idea.
Mollie
No, we know, but that's okay. But this event here was, back was the events that we were at where we started talking about, frame preserving where the idea was born.
Rosie
So, yeah, all right. You are down to six minutes. I've got four, eight, four left. So. All right. Okay. Your favorite picture of Alex. Because we can't we can't have an extra one of Hannah. And not be fair to Alex here.
Mollie
You know. Oh. Oh. Okay. So I'm in, I'm actually in the wrong account, and you just get my get my and I is the I.
Rosie
While you're looking, I'm going to say that I know that the way you're having to look at accounts doesn't perfectly give the example of the connections. And how they work, but that's because you have a business account that's connected, different because it's not family. And I think I want to just make that clear to anybody who's watching. It's much smoother if you're doing this in a kind of a different way, but okay, it's competing needs here.
Mollie
And I'm with laughing on topics. So so I'm going to just go to Alex here and oh go back for a second. Okay.
Rosie
I didn't know it did that where you see all the faces and all of the tech names. That's really cool.
Mollie
Yep. This is facial recognition. So, It is. I did not know that it was a new service added last year or so. And there is a cost for it, so I'll just, you know, this is a great photo of Alex here, as a baby, which he's now, you know, I mean, there's like, 5000 pictures of him, so I'd really need to go through.
Rosie
And favorite one? My my favorite of him. I didn't ask for mine, but I'll tell you, is where he's wearing the blue sweatshirt and he's on the ground looking up, holding a rock. Okay. In your front yard. I don't know why I like that one is of him young, although you have a couple. When he was being quite the him here, you know, putting a stick in his mouth and we'd say, oh yeah. And then he'd start crying and but that, that photo that you're thinking of is, probably 2000. We're close. But it is. Yeah. Right. Right there.
Mollie
Yep. That's a let's just put a heart on that one so I can find it quicker the next time. Okay. All right. But your favorite. What about your favorite? This is, this one, is there?
Rosie
Yeah. This is just the best. Okay. The very the picture that represents the very beginning of us accepting our age because we are now burning. This is a more recent one, so I, I'm trying to be somewhat nice here.
Mollie
Yeah. So let's go to my 2020 fours when we started and we started in kind of July I would think is when we really got into it. So, we went, this is it. We were oh, we went to Iowa, and, and the Mississippi to see birds and, for your birthday. Yeah. That was really fun night. And you, what were you were you you were 50.
Rosie
That was my 50th birthday. We first birthday. We first went out at the end of May, and we kind of puttered around, but we but this was our first.
Mollie
We are serious. We kind of get what we're doing and we are serious. And it was hot and it was awful. Think like it was. We bought treats and I didn't save many pictures of the birds from that day, but, no, but you got them. And, yeah, it's a red headed woodpecker, which I'm certain to know way more about.
Rosie
All right. Okay. All right. You're a family moment. That's not a holiday or a birthday. That is just very like, celebratory and happy and and, you know, it's that moment. Okay? Like, with the four of us, it's not a holiday. It's not a it can be your family. It can be our family. It can be your family can be up. It can be whatever you want of that picture that just represents family and celebration. But it's not a holiday or a birthday. Okay. You know, we we so often we have holidays and we have birthdays and those are all the known things that happen. But it's the unexpected things throughout the year that you know, and not that I'm trying to help you, but we have a yearly Halloween party.
Mollie
We have family reunions occasionally. Just helped me once in a while. We just decide as a family, we're going to go for Maria's Pizza together. Once in a while. We decide to go meet at a beer garden, like, there's so many things that are not the obvious that really celebrate and set a year apart because everybody I mean, I remember, you know, helping organize pictures I thought was that I see one more Christmas, one more Christmas picture, you know, like you have a family and they have 50 years of Christmas photos at some point.
Yeah. These are the things that set you apart in a different way or set a year apart in a different way. Oh boy. I, I don't know, like with all four of us or with anything, you know, I just love the photos where you're out in nature and you're enjoying life. These are pictures from,Yeah. A wedding, so I don't know. That's a tough one. Like here. There is just people gather this is a good one. It's all of us gathered when, Family. Yeah. So I hope that counts.
Rosie
It can count because you're running out of time. All right, all right. Last one. And you're technically, you've got 15 seconds, two families on vacation together.I am thinking of a very specific two families. She's, Disney trivia was torn trip to electropop last trip trip trip trip report was to specific family. Go back way back. We go back. Like think of our younger days.
Mollie
Oh, younger days. So I need to be in in my on our mother's account. So think about how who did we go up north with.
Rosie
Oh, okay. Okay. All right. And while you're looking, I'll explain. We had we went to school and in my grade and in Mollie's grade were two sisters. So we each had a sister in our grade. And both of us got to be friends with, you know, the sister, you know, the the family like me and the girl and Mollie and the girl in her grade. And our parents became friends, and they actually would go out drinking, and we would take trips up north together and it's just to say that sometimes not all family is a blood relation or not. Not all things that are really a big part of your life are family and relationships change over time, but the memories that you have are still just, I think, incredible and fun to look back on.
Mollie
And just seeing if there was any pictures in my scrapbooks from those days. I know they're in my mom and dad, you know, they're they're, Forever photos, but, yeah, I had something in here with them, but maybe not. Okay. Well, I probably need I probably going to take a pass because I know, I, I know where they are, but I believe you, and and you only took a pass on two.
Rosie
So you did find 13 of the 15 in 30 one minutes. Holy smokes. That's not bad. Holy smokes. But also during that time we passed by all kinds of pictures that I now have fuel to do this again someday, because I have seen all kinds of pictures now. So it's just fun that you can pick. I mean, you didn't know any of these topics.
Mollie
I mean, you know, me. So you might have kind of known that I picked some easy and some hard, and, and I'm always going to bring that stupid tulip picture up. Okay, hold that thought. I just want to say hi to Stefanie. If you're still here, thank you so much for watching today. And if you have any questions or a favorite photo you want to tell us about, feel free to drop it in the, the chat area. I always think that the bulk of the work is, oh, it can be overwhelming and the rewards sometimes are a little thin until you get your sister in a captivated moment and she can see, like the thousands of memories that we share over the years. Well, and for me, it was a balancing act. I had this memory of like, hitting pictures for a lot of reasons, and that there were a lot of things I didn't necessarily enjoy about growing up, and that I felt like when I was older it was much easier to just be me, blah blah, blah.
Mollie
But but seeing the pictures organized in a way that puts out a story of your, you know, your life. For as cliche, and as much as I hate that story of your life thing, it really does show you that the moments are many and within there there are some bad. But within there there are a lot of good too.
Rosie
And I think that that that for me is what brings me all the way home to I don't avoid it anymore, and I kind of enjoy it in my own, in my own way. And I'm so grateful that I can just be like, Mollie, send me this, and then I don't have to go look through them. But yet I'm I'm curious about some now.
Mollie
So it's it's it's an evolution for me. Well, I just want to say thank you, Rosie, for walking me through this. I get so caught up in the details of organize this and be consistent and do that. And she's like, Mollie, you got to just step back and celebrate. So and I feel way this was really therapeutic for both of us.
Rosie
And probably it's always good to keep I think the celebration in mind because you know what? Hard work is fine and daunting. Work is fine and frustration is fine as long as at the end of that tunnel, it's not a freight train heading at you. It is a big celebration like this. Is this is why you do what you do is to be able to do exactly this. You can pick out any picture at any time, and if you can't like the carrot cake, which I still want to see a picture of, but if you can't pick that out, you know it's somewhere and it hasn't been scanned yet. It's a process and that's okay. I have the carrot cake to look forward to. Yeah. So thank you for, putting up with the rules and the randomness of it.
Mollie
No problem. All right. We are going to wrap up our live show today. And if you have questions, you can throw them in the chat. We will eventually get to those for you. In the meantime, go save September's photos, delete the ones you know you'll never need, and get the pictures that matter to a folder on your computer and backed up in the cloud. And you just saw how Forever can really work in preserving and sharing the memories. All right. Thank you so much for joining. We'll see you again. Buh bye.
