KNAPR = PRANK

RHIDT = THIRD

ARKTEA = KARATE

SLOYCT = COSTLY

CARTOON ANSWER:

PRATHRRAECSY = PARTY CRASHER

Happy Saturday morning!  THIRD, COSTLY, and KARATE were tricky for me today.  After they were solved, the cartoon was a piece of cake.  Have a great New Year’s Eve my friends and be safe tonight if you choose to imbibe.  I’ll see you all next year!  😋🥂🍾

SAREO = AROSE

NATDS = STAND

CITYMS = MYSTIC

QEOAPU = OPAQUE

CARTOON ANSWER:

ROSSTDTIPAE = STORIED PAST

Happy Friday, my friends!  This puzzle truly had my brain confused this morning, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.  David picked some excellent clue words with AROSE being the most challenging of the group.  We’ve seen MYSTIC before so it didn’t trip me up this time.  The Q was the odd letter in OPAQUE and I find that when there is a unique letter, the word is much easier to solve as there are only so many words to choose from.  Mr. Knurek’s cartoon coupled with Mr. Hoyt’s fantastic and cryptic letter layout are what really stole the show.  I was stumped just by looking at the letters and not sure where to begin.  I immediately found RISE, but it was already used in the cartoon and I was sure they wouldn’t make the solution that easy.  Perhaps it was a trick, so I went with it and I’m glad that I did.  I crossed out the letters and tried my darndest to make a 7 letter word out of the remaining letters.  After a few minutes, nothing was coming into view so I read the cartoon again and started thinking about alternate words for historic.  I found PAST in the remaining letters, then I went back and wrote down my original letters and crossed out PAST and found STORIED in a flash!  I hope my explanation wasn’t too confusing and if so I apologize.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see this Jumble headed to the JUST JUMBLE game in the near future.  We did get some snow last night here in NH.  It was the first recordable snowfall for my snow stick so I thought I’d share a photo.  It’s just under the 3″ mark and exactly what the local weatherman predicted.  And lastly, I had a few extra minutes this morning to attempt Saturday’s Jumble.  The clue words were more difficult than todays and  I’m still stuck on one of them.  I’ll post the answer later this evening when I can commit more time to figuring it out.  Enjoy the day and I’ll see you tomorrow.  🙂