First thing I reach for is my solar-powered lanterns. They live on my windowsills so they’re always charging, and I don’t have to worry about dead batteries or finding matches in the dark. Love how bright they get—makes it easy to keep moving around the house. For longer outages, I’ll pull out my USB power banks that get charged from a small solar panel kit I’ve rigged up on the back porch. That way, I can at least keep the phone going and listen to the radio for updates.
Candles are my backup, but to be honest, I worry more about fire hazards with those, especially now that the grandkids are around sometimes. Used to rely on those big battery lanterns, but I got tired of replacing batteries
