Wordle 661:

 All right. Getting back on track with consistent blog posts. I want to switch it up with my opening guess, and try to think of a good word with three vowels. I am cognizant of the fact that U has been in the answer the last couple of days and get carried away with that notion. I end up guessing SAUCE instead of the more interesting choice: suave. Look, I'm going out on a limb with the U, I can't double down on exotic letters with a V as well. Whoa, we're going to have U in the answer again as the A and the U both turn up yellow. Everything else is a miss.

My initial thought is to go with the UN prefix for my next guess. I kind of struggle to think of where to put the A and land on UNHAT. UNHAT? Does that mean to take someone's hat off? "Unhat me, sir!" That can't be right, can it? It's a word, but it doesn't give me any more letters. My next guess is ALOUD. Maybe there are more vowels in this puzzle. The O stays gray, but the L is yellow. So I've got three letters, but I still don't know where any of the go in the final word.

I want to guess LAUGH, but I know that isn't right based on my SAUCE guess. I know the U is either the second or the last letter. Of the top of my head, placing it second makes more sense than last. That locks me into have the A either third or last. I end up on VULVA as a guess. Could that be it? Seems a little risqué for WORDLE, but it is a body part. Okay, I finally get a green box for the U. And by process of elimination, I know the A is the third letter. Wow. Guessing SUAVE first would've saved me a lot of time and frustration.

I don't know what to do with this L and I'm starting to get the real feeling that I'm about to take an L on this. I have two guesses left and no idea what to do. I'm typing different letters in the first box, just trying to see if anything gets my mind going. Nothing is making sense. Finally, I put Q in the first box. QUA--. But what to do with that L? QUAIL? Is that how you spell it? I'm not a bird person. I honestly don't know. I get green boxes! But I don't get it right.

So I've got my last guess and I'm staring at QUAL-. Looking at me available letters, the only thing I can see is QUALM.  

Everything else would seem made up QUALY? Nope. QUALA would just be a crazy misspelling of KOALA. QUALK? Is that an offshoot of CAULK? QUALE? No, none of this makes any sense. I'm going with QUALM and I have no qualms about it. I get five green boxes on my final guess. Phew, indeed. 

I would imagine that today's puzzle is going to trip people up. Uncommon letters in a word that is not used frequently will probably trip people up. But this was a great example of a puzzle that is both challenging and fun once you land on it. Looking back on it, I was in the right direction with my thinking, but just off by a few degrees, which led me to going the distance before figuring out QUALM.