More baby steps to emergency planning

I took a little break from my "planning for emergencies" while I was preparing for the holidays, but once we got back into town, I realized we were missing a few things that I should get as soon as possible.

Our biggest threat right now would be power outage from a winter storm so I thought it was time to get my self in gear and collect the items to make these emergency long lasting lantern/candles:

picture taken from salt n prepper's DIY list

 which I found via Pinterest

I was able to find narrow lantern wicks at Canadian Tire, and the liquid paraffin is from Green Earth.  After I bought the paraffin ($5.99 for 500ml), I realized that although it burns cleaner than kerosene, it is still lamp oil, so if I need to refill them, I will probably stick with the kerosene as it is $6.00 for a liter.  I didn't buy the squat mason jars, as I have plenty plenty of mason jars at home.  I will be cutting the slits in the jar lids this week (hopefully) to fit the wicks, but as I read that the paraffin wax evaporates, I will only fill them when I need them.  I still have plenty of candles on hand to light the way long enough to fill the lanterns - thanks to my lovely sister who brought me a whole box full on her last visit.

# 2  While we were out at the mall (that's where our Canadian Tire is), I found $5.00 flashlights on sale for $1.49, so I bought 4.  One for each of our evacuation bags...something I had forgotten until my sister mentioned that on her visit as well. Oh, and I added a peanut butter jar of dried cat food to my own bag, for our furry little friend.

And #3:

This is something that I tucked into the boys' stocking this year - for camping I told them (sly).  The tutorial for the little pouch is on my sidebar if you need it.  I added a small floating compass that pins onto your clothes, a whistle and bright yellow bandana to attract attention should they need it, and a tiny knife (because they love knives, and I don't have scissors in the evacuation bags).  They have clipped it onto the strap of their evacuation bags, so that when we go camping we will know right where to find the pieces, at which point it can be clipped to their belt loop.  Since my husband already owns a compass, he just got the whistle and bandana (I think that will be used more for answering the boys' whistle calls than anything else, but you never know), and I made myself a little kit too, but mine is in one of the pockets of my backpack as the bag does not have a clip on it yet (very typical of me, by the way...to finish theirs but not finish my own).

What I'm finding as the weeks go by is that taking these little baby steps has actually gotten us ahead faster than I thought.  We still have a long way to go, but at least now it isn't as overwhelming as when we began this journey.

So...here's my question...are you doing yours in baby steps or a whole bunch all at once to get it out of the way?  Anything you would like to recommend to those who are following along?