Looking for the answer to today's Connections puzzle, #395, from July 10, the roller-coaster Connections puzzle of the week, this puzzle from Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 27 out of 5

We update our Connections clues and hints daily And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four answers along with the category title and related words In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I've included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #394

There are spoilers for connection #395 Only read this if you want to know the answer to today's connection

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses

If you need a hint to help you solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least be able to find the answer to today's connection If not, please continue reading for larger hints Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further

Here's an even bigger clue: The difficulty level has been lowered, so embark on a relaxing trip to the river or lake

Now for the answer to today's game #395 Connection

Drum roll please

I don't think I was the last to get the yellow category There have been a few times in my Connections career when I have been next to last, but never a final category completed

I chose Forecasts, Prospects, and Prospects first, so I did not have to do so I don't know why I stopped, but as I was moving to the last "opportunity," yellow, I saw a back-talking connection Instead, I cleared it and hit Attitude, Cheek, Lip, Sass Very crossword-y

Having grown up wearing glasses because of astigmatism, instead of going back to yellow, I jumped to purple, which includes the parts of glasses: bridge, lenses, rims, and temples It was pretty obvious

The way the grid fell quickly became fukase, perch, and pike next to each other After that, grabbing bass was easy

Then, of course, the yellow went from there to a memorized fill

Read this later in the hour According to the Connections Companion, the Connections solution to game #394, which had a difficulty score of 35 out of 5, is as follows

I mentioned earlier that I take a magic eye image approach to solving Connections To be honest, after solving yesterday's puzzle gently and easily, that may have been the only way I could solve today's puzzle

I also tend to start at the bottom of the grid So when I saw the word "mane" I immediately started looking for other "hair" words; "mop" and "tangle" were easy to find; "mane" was the first word I found, and "mane" was the second word I found I had a hard time finding "shock," but when I did, it fell into the green category

The yellow category was then easy to find, and journal, log, record, and register were fairly close in the rest of the grid

Then I ran into trouble: three times in a row I couldn't find the answer It was a combination of three blue and one purple

I fell into the verb trap, with scrub, weed, trimmer, cheer, and hog in and out of my lineup at various points, refusing to let go like a dog with a bone

Personally, I tend to have a hard time with words minus alphabets and prefixes So I just couldn't see the blue category and its TV show

So I took a break and looked at the purple words I didn't use; maze and fund never crossed my verb-addled mind I admit that my last guess was a Hail Mary with hog and trimmer because I couldn't think of anything else I know I should have put purple in the generals But I was hazy on the connections

The blue category was then filled by rote, albeit bitterly: Cheer(s), Friend(s), Scrub(s), Weed(s)