Linda

It's so funny what is easy for some then others of us needs lots of help! Here is how my week goes: Monday: it's usually in my range of doable, no hints. Tuesday: I might have one sticking point, like a cross with two names I don't know. Wednesday: I might use hints from the column, but I feel okay leaving my star gold because I did most of it on my own. Thursdays: the dreaded possible rebus day! I don't mind the rebus but I don't know always when they are in play so it's almost always going to be a heads up from the column! I'm mixed bag -- the more I've done, the more I can fill in natively and feel okay claiming the win, but there's some point that I've used enough hints from column and comments I'll run autocheck to not get a gold star. (Am I weird there's a level of help that the integrity kicks in whether I've earned gold or not? Probably!) And then later in the week, puzzles like this that even with hints I turn on autocheck and know I'm not doing this one with my ability at all! And yes, there are times I have autocheck on and run the vowels and fill those in and then figure out the answer, and if that doesn't do it, run common letters like t, s, r. I admire those of you who tackle these and say how easy they are as if it were a Monday solve for me, but I know I'll never be one of y'all. That's okay, I still have fun meeting the challenge at my ability level even if it's not up to par! Happy weekend, fellow puzzle solvers!

I did pretty good but the north east corner I got hung up on 10A 19A and 12D. I was trying to be kind to myself, but alas... I figured out that the polar bear wasn't Coke related from the crosses at least! And while I'm no good at proper names like Ayo and Denise, again saved by the crosses. I love Mondays. I can pretend to be clever! Thanks for a fun solve!

I really enjoyed this. Usually on a Thursday even with hints and comments I have to resort to autocheck and when really desperate, running the alphabet. This one, a few helps and I got there! A lot of times I'm done in by crossing entries that don't help me fill in particular areas but this one seemed to have a nice balance of crosses to more obscure (to me, anyway.). Not that I didn't have wrong answers that misled in places.. Before I knew the theme, THEYTHEM fit nicely and even though the mismatched tense bothered me, it matched the clue and the few crosses I had in place. It wasn't until later when I sure couldn't find a metal in there that I erased some letters. Oh, THEIRONY of the other fitting! Anyway, I don't usually comment but wanted to say I really enjoyed today's puzzle.

I'm not a great puzzler, but I enjoy the challenge (well, usually!) I'm thrilled when I get through a non-Monday with only one look up -- now it could be there are a hundred comments about how easy this was, but I enjoyed it very much. I tried to be trendy with DaP and went with IsLETS when clearly I needed to IRON out my thinking! Enough YAPing from me -- happy almost hump day!