Okay, so I’ve always been a bit of a word nerd. I love crosswords, but the NYT one? That’s like the Mount Everest of crosswords. It’s always intimidated me, you know? But I decided, “This is the year. I’m tackling this beast.”
So, I started small. I printed out a Monday puzzle – Mondays are supposed to be the easiest. I grabbed a pencil (gotta have that eraser!), and made myself a cup of coffee. I even put on some “focus” music. Yeah, I went all in.
At first, it was rough. I mean, really rough. I stared at the clues, and my mind was just blank. Like, “Four-letter word for a kind of bean?” I’m thinking, “Is it a… fava? Lima? What the heck?”
- I started by filling in anything I knew for sure, even if it was just a couple of letters.
- Then, I used the crosses – the letters from the words I did know – to help me figure out the ones I didn’t.
- Lots of guessing and erasing. Seriously, my eraser got a workout.
Slowly, but surely, I started to make progress. A word here, a word there. It was like a little victory every time I filled in a square. I remember one clue, “Opposite of fast,” and I was like, “SLOW!” I actually yelled it out. My cat gave me a weird look, but I didn’t care. I was on a roll!
It took me a good hour, maybe more. But I finally finished it. I filled in that last square, and I just sat back and admired my work. It wasn’t pretty, there were smudges everywhere, but it was DONE. I conquered the Monday NYT crossword!
I’m not going to lie, it was a challenge. But it was also super satisfying. It’s like, my brain got a good workout, and I proved to myself that I could do it. Now, I’m doing the Monday puzzle every week, and I’m even brave enough to try the Tuesday one sometimes. Still working my way up to the Sunday, though. That’s the real monster!
