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 2.7 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 3.5 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).