My father's mother Joyce is one smart lady. She knows how to cook and can everything, is an early and adept adopter of technology, and raised three smart, clever kids. Grandma has always been thrifty, first out of need and now out of habit. Every time I visit, as I did this past weekend, I find new tricks to save time, energy, or effort. Here are five:

1) Enlarge The Hummingbird Feeder - Grandma must have gotten tired of filling the hummingbird feeder at some point so she wisely upgraded the 8 ounce jar to a 2 liter bottle with a little wire extension of the top ring holder.

2) Know Smart Design - My dad told me that this tool rack has been around for decades. With the divided sections and hardware cloth bottom, this sturdy rack is brilliantly designed to hold a lot of garden tools. Alex, can you make me one?

3) Cord Buckets - Keep extension cords in check by winding them into a large bucket. You can't see the small hole on the bottom of the side to allow for one of the ends to stick out. This idea may have come from my Aunt Mo (hand pictured above).

4) Save Everything - Aunt Mo is going to kill me for saying this but Grandma has a lot of treasures in her house among what many would see as a lot of junk. This box of jars I spied in the garage, for instance, clearly contains some of my favorite square vintage jars. There are also some seriously antique lids! If collecting (and using!) canning jars is wrong, Grandma and I don't want to be right.

5) Use That Family - Grandma is taking all of us (her kids, their kids, and my kid) to Hawaii this summer. THANK YOU GRANDMA! Then she decided she needed a little help with yardwork. Guess who showed up and gladly put in 30 people-hours in a single hot morning? My sisters, cousins, parents, and aunt did. I told you Grandma was a smart lady.