Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #481 on October 4, which is considerably easier than yesterday's puzzle, this puzzle from Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 23 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, #480

There are spoilers for connection #481 Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read on

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 solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

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

Here's a bigger hint: Before you go on a dinner date, before you see a Disney show, think about divots on a golf course and put a dollop of sour cream on it

Now, what's the answer to today's Game 481 connection?

Drumroll, please

I feel like I've been living on rated difficulty levels 4 and 3 for weeks, and today's low 2 was a piece of cake But I admit that I was second-guessing myself because the puzzles were so difficult

I started with a drop, a dab, and a dash; for some reason I thought the fourth quantity was a dimple, but I suddenly came to myself and put the drop in the green category

Yellow followed nicely with dent, dimple, ding, divot

I watch a lot of Disney with my kids, so Daisy, Dale, Doc (Hudson or dwarf), and Dolly were easy to snag

If this were a more difficult puzzle, I would suggest adding words or making up phrases if you get stuck, since today's purple is a group of XX However, today's puzzle was a memorization puzzle that wrapped up an all-D puzzle with delivery dates, dinner dates, dream dates, and due dates The only disappointing thing about this puzzle is that Due and Delivery mean the same thing

Enjoy your weekend!

Are you reading this in a slow time zone? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 37 out of 5

At one point it dropped to 2x, but is back to 3x again

Surprisingly, today felt as easy as yesterday

To get things started, we grabbed a yellow group with juice, milk, punch, and soda beverages

Then we took care of the plants: fertilizing, potting, pruning, watering

As always, I feel a great aversion to the letter-taking category, so I was a little stuck until I considered a pair of skis and socks The earbuds and bookends were picked up after the pants strike

From there, I was able to make a memorization entry with purple bugs, minus the first letter This yielded (B) lice, (P) ants, (S) mites, and (S) ticks