Notes from the side of a volcano:

1. Daughter-Two had a hospital appointment for an X-ray and checkup the other day, timed so we could walk there straight after school then walk home. Which was fine in theory, except come 3pm a storm blew up. So we were plodding along in the pouring rain getting wetter and wetter, watching the drains fill in water and eventually become rushing torrents. By the time we arrived at the hospital we were both soaked. Luckily Daughter-Two has been carrying around a spare pair of trousers in her school bag for the past three years and they finally got to be used.

Daughter-Two was amazing during the X-ray (and very interested to see it on the screen). We were in the exam room when a receptionist burst in and asked me where we lived. Then she said that a tornado had hit on the North Shore. We do very occasionally have tornadoes here - of the small and mildly interesting kind that maybe whip some washing off the line or cause a tree to fall. In fact, I had just been thinking (while watching the TV news the other day) how lucky it was that we don't get destructive tornadoes here, unlike mid-America. We just don't have the land mass.

But it seems there was some very unusual set of meteorological factors and this was the real thing, tearing up a shopping mall, throwing cars and RVs across carparks (killing one man and injuring several other people). Most people seemed to stop and film it on their cameraphones as if it were a scene in a movie or they were watching it on the TV news, saying it took them a while to register that it WAS real and they could be in danger.

The receptionist was so excited as she told us about it, as the doctor frantically said "yes, yes, THANK you" to her and pointedly flicked her eyes at Daughter-Two, until I said "it's OK, she's fascinated by meteorology and .. ah ... in fact by natural disasters of all kinds".

As it happens, the tornado touched down on the North Shore, then crossed the harbour passing just a few kms from where she and I were walking in the rain, touched down again then disappeared. So it's lucky we couldn't see more than a metre in front of us as the rain poured off our umbrella as we walked.

2. Speaking of tornadoes, a facebook page has been set up to reunite people with personal photographs and important papers which have been found scattered following the devastating storms in the US.People who find them are drying them out and scanning them before posting them on the page for people to claim. I just looked through a few, and many of them had already been claimed. On one photo, someone had commented that they knew the family and the father in the photo had died two months ago so it would mean a lot to have it returned.

It reminded me that, as part of that occasional disaster preparedness project, I need to organise some online storage for photos (including scans of older, non-digital photographs). Everything else can be replaced - new clothes, new copies of books, new furniture. But you can't replace the photos. They hold people's stories and memories and I hate to think of them being blown away or burnt. If you have automated online backup (which isn't really an option here thanks to the slow and overpriced broadband services) then your digital photos on your computer would be recoverable, but older photos need to be scanned and saved. And I need to think of an option for uploading and storing all my pics.

3. Daughter-two never used the computer until recently, but now she does have a few educational and "virtual world" sites she likes to visit. Her favourite one just released some new "virtual" characters for sale ($5) and she wanted to spend some of her birthday money on buying one. I am not a fan of such things at the best of times, but figured it was her money so as a once-off I said "OK". But what a frustrating experience that was. Before you could even buy the virtual character you had to fill in your name, birthdate, address, phone number, everything short of your blood group and your mother's-sister's-mother-in-law's maiden name. Then you paid your money. But did it immediately transfer you to nice screen thanking you and explaining how to activate the character? No. But you did get an email with a receipt. But when I tried to use the receipt code it required me to also put in my "club number". So I tried to join the club (more questions that only stopped short of a retina scan) but I couldn't without a valid US zip code. So then I fired off an angry email, only to return to the computer about three hours later to see an email (finally) with a code I could apparently use. I have yet to put it to the test.

The only good thing was seeing how patient and good at handling her disappointment Daughter-Two was. I was the one nearly pulling my hair out.

4. Every week we choose a different layout to lift as part of the "Saturday Scraplift" challenge at Designer Digitals. Here's my layout from last Saturday:

You can find the layout that inspired it (by amazing French digital scrapbooking star Nath) on the Designer Digitals blog HERE.

5. Here's a sneak peek of the new kit coming to the store this weekend:

digital scrapbooking New Zealand, scraplifting challenge

Some more lovely digital scrapbook layout designs from the DD ideas gallery, including this lovely Easter page by Jess using Scrap Express 103 AND "Sugar Rabbit" kit:

Merrilee also scrapped an Easter layout, with this layout using "Woodlands" kit:

Something completely different from Sharon, who scrapped the trees around Perth using the Australian mini-kit "Among the Gum trees":

A lovely page by Chrissy using Milly Molly (and what a great thing to scrap):

And I love this page by Jana, which uses lots of different kits for a gorgeous result:

Take one template

What can you do with a double page digital template? Completely make it your own. You clip your photos and your paper where you want, you can even move around the layers. It's takes the stress out of scrapping by just leaving you with the fun part of choosing papers and photos.

Take Scrap Express 103: