TEERB = BERET

SWYNO = SNOWY

ITAXFE = FIXATE

SGRNIT = STRING

CARTOON ANSWER:

SOME PEOPLE PREFER TO MAKE COFFEE QUICKLY, LIKE USING CRYSTALS – – –

RTSNOFIASTN = FOR “INSTANTS”

Good Wednesday morning, Jumble friends! Hip hip hooray for BERET is all I have to say as I felt it was the only challenging clue word today. It’s unusual for one of the 5-letter words to give me so much trouble. I started out by trying to make words starting with “T” until I used my trick of trying the anagram backwards to bring it into view. Next up was SNOWY which was instantly visible. If you had difficulty solving this one, remember the “Y” trick. If an anagram contains a “Y”, most likely the finished clue word will also end in a “Y”. It doesn’t always work but it’s worth a try if you’re stuck. FIXATE and STRING took just a glance to complete, and it was off to the cartoon!

The setting for today’s panel is a kitchen where two characters appear to be enjoying a leisurely morning. The man is busy making a couple of cups of coffee while his significant other is seated at a table with a newspaper. The man is pouring hot water into a “I ❤️ Jumble” coffee cup with a can of “Quick Coffee” on the counter beside it. By reading the dialogue and sentence we discover that he’s preparing the drinks with coffee crystals to save some time. With his preparation method being so detailed, I knew it would be part of the final solution. Before I attempted the final solve, I took a few moments to savor all of the detail work that Jeff poured into this one. The little scoop in the coffee can was a great touch as was the “J” on the man’s shirt. The newspaper that the woman was holding had to be my favorite part. If you look closely, you can see that she’s finishing up the Jumble! Also on the newspaper was “The Family Circus” cartoon as well as a couple of grid-shaped puzzles. My guess is that they were the Sudoku and Word Search games.

The layout for the final solve was 11-letters in length and kept the answer well hidden. The only 3-letter word that I could come up with was FOR so I crossed it out. I had to work another minute for the 8-letter word in quotes but it wasn’t too difficult with all of the visual clues in the cartoon.

On a final note, the winner of this month’s giveaway was Stephen D! Congratulations, Stephen, and I hope you enjoy your prize. 🙂

Have a wonderful Wednesday, and I’ll see you tomorrow!