Themeless: No Thoughts, Head Empty (Summer Puzzle 12, with Dan Schwartz)

 Sorry for the delay, but I'm here once again with a summer puzzle! We're starting to get towards the end of summer (already!), which means that I once again am starting to get a little busy, between preparing for the upcoming semester and traveling last week to NYC for Lollapuzzoola. That's basically all that delayed this puzzle, but I am going to still be trying to get 2-3 more of these out before the summer is actually over!

Speaking of Lollapuzzoola, this puzzle is a collab with Lolla express division runner up Dan Schwartz. Dan is a great friend, a common collaborator of mine, and also just so incredibly good and fast at solving puzzles. It was very fun to collab with him here, and I hope you like the puzzle.

Dan says:

"I had fun making this with you! Happy summer"

Crosshare

Combo Meal (Summer Puzzle 11)

 This week, I bring you a fairly straightforward themed puzzle, with a few themers I've been thinking about for a bit. Since there's only 3 themers, and some of them were on the shorter side, I tried to make this a slightly more open grid than I usually do, and I am of course always trying to find good fill/clues.

Anyways, not much more to say about this one, but if I don't get my next puzzle up before next Saturday, I should say that I will in fact be at Lollapuzzoola this year! I'm actually leaving tomorrow to spend some time in NYC with friends before the tournament, so... maybe Amtrak will inspire my next puzzle? Who knows, I don't really plan these in advance, but I will try to keep posting one per week!

Crosshare

A Couple of Items (Summer Puzzle 10)

 Yes, I'm still here and proud to present the 10th summer puzzle! I'll be keeping this going through August (and hopefully get back to a true weekly schedule soon), so there's more to go. This one is definitely another "I just put the media I'm consuming into a puzzle" puzzle, and the theme is a little looser, but as always, I hope you have fun!

Also! I will be at Boswords tomorrow! (Likely place for me to be, I know.) If you're there, please come say hi. I love talking to people at tournaments.

Crosshare

Themeless: Cool for the Summer (Summer Puzzle 9)

First off, sorry for the delay on this puzzle--I did say at the start of this project that I was likely to miss a week here and there, and I guess I made good on this project. Pretty shortly after the last puzzle I posted, I got sick (why I didn't post a puzzle last weekend), and then I wound up traveling for a multi-day bachelorette party (why this puzzle is late). I am, in fact, still traveling (driving back to Boston) and therefore very tired, but I should be home tomorrow, so that should get us back on track.

Anyways, for those of you who aren't here for my life updates, have a puzzle! This one's a themeless where IMO the vibes are 10% "hot girl summer" and 90% "I must be the hottest they/them at the bachelorette party." I also was completely exhausted during most of the cluing of this puzzle (due to the aforementioned travel), so the "no test solvers" vibe may be a little rougher than usual, but I like the grid a lot and think this should be fun!

Crosshare

A Crossword Rows (Summer Puzzle 8, with Alex Boisvert)

 Hi all, about to head off for my little Pride trip, so I'll keep this one short, but I'm delighted to have another collab for you this week! You all surely know Alex Boisvert of Crossword Nexus fame, who is a variety puzzle whiz. He pointed out that I, of all people, should really have a Rows Garden on my blog, and I agreed! So we made one! Enjoy! There's no embed for this, but I have online solving (multiflora) and PDF options below, so use whichever you like.

Online Solver | PDF

Imagine the Pastabilities (Summer Puzzle 7, with Dob Olino)

 New collab this week, and it's with Dob Olino of Crossweird fame! Dob's a great friend, and we've been meaning to do a second collab for awhile, so I'm glad we finally were able to put something together for this blog project! Fair warning, we got pretty silly with it, so expect this to be a bit goofier than some of the other summer puzzles, but I think it's pretty fun! Also thanks to the answer to 72-Down for their special guest clue on 72-Down.

Dob says:

"I've been enjoying Rose's Summer Puzzles a lot, which Momes and I have been solving on our Crossweird Twitch channel (definitely the last shameless plug). I am always genuinely honored when Rose wants to collab with me, which we did once before on a genuinely really good blog puzzle. When I thought of this silly idea, I immediately knew Rose would be into it and all the themers came together almost immediately. It's super dumb in the most super fun way and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for solving!"

In other A Crossword Rose news, for those of you who read last week's blog post/did last week's puzzle, please know that I finished watching the show, and now my soul has been shattered, life changed, etc. So take this as a strong endorsement to solve that puzzle and then watch the show (or just talk to me about it if you have watched it). The other Rose news is that I'll be traveling next weekend for Pride--going to try to get a puzzle up before then, but there's a small chance I'll be taking a week off.

Crosshare

Absolute Destiny Apocalypse (Summer Puzzle 6)

 A fun thing about posting a puzzle every week this summer is that this blog becomes a little bit of a record of my (not very eventful, tbh) summer. Anyways, at the end of May, I went on a little trip to Acadia National Park (which was lovely) and then sprained my ankle while hiking (which was not so lovely). This meant that I basically spent the first week of June sitting on my couch watching TV, and in particular, I spent a fair bit of time watching a certain anime, which inspired this puzzle!

Anyways, if you are familiar with the subject of this puzzle, please know that I have about 5 episodes left, I am having a GREAT time, and I have gone in spoiler-free and very much do not want to be spoiled. Also my description of it in this puzzle probably doesn't do it justice but I had to fit it into a parseable crossword clue.

Anyways, hope everyone who's been solving is having a good summer! Happy Pride! See you all again next week!

(Also, side note, unless I hear from someone that they really want the separate puz files, I'm going to start just linking the Crosshare for now! I started uploading separate puz files, because it played nicer with the Daily Crossword Links bot several years ago, but I think that's been resolved, and anyone else can download a puz directly from the Crosshare applet if you want to solve elsewhere.)

Direct Link