Tag Archives: smile

Changing Moods

Your face can give you away. Sometimes I watch people while Mick and I are shopping or driving and some people constantly wear a sour look – they go about glaring at the world. It doesn’t make them easy to relate to but tends to turn people away. I admit sometimes for no apparent reason I am not in a good mood. I just feel down. Things go wrong and suddenly that bad mood escalates. At that point I have a choice. I can continue in that mood. Or I can try and look at the positives in my life, … Continue reading →

21 Ways to Make Your Dog Smile

The last time we went to have a Murph post-op paw check-up at the surgeon’s office, we were placed in a room that had artwork in it this time –in the form of a cute poster titled “21 Ways to Make a Dog Smile.” It was a long, skinny one with three columns seven rows deep of 21 different smiling dog faces. Above the pictures were captions that suggested such smile-invoking activities as “Play catch,” “Make it a Blockbuster night,” “Do you want to go for a…WALK?!,” “Joyride!,” “Bring your dog to work day,” and “Teach your dog to smile…literally!” … Continue reading →

Baby’s Smile Acts Like a Drug

The miracle of a baby’s smile, how it just instantly melts your heart and makes the sleep deprivation and the stress all worth while, is a powerful thing. Now, researchers have concluded, a baby’s smile not only warms the heart but it affects the brain, and it does so much the same way that a drug might. The smile of an infant sends a trigger to the mother’s brain in the reward center. This is the same area that is considered the pleasure center and responds to the high of alcohol or drugs. A baby’s smile sets off a response … Continue reading →

Remind Yourself to Smile (It’s Good for Your Health)

Can we say enough about smiling? I know that it can become almost trite to hear someone remind you to smile (me) or to hear those reminders about how much more likely people are to smile back if you smile first…blah, blah, blah, as some of my friends tend to say. The truth is, however, that when things are getting tough and ragged, sometimes reminding yourself to just generate a smile can change a day from bumpy to at least somewhat smoother. And, as single parents, I think we need all the tricks we can gather! I cannot remember where … Continue reading →

Share a Smile

We tend to focus on the “business” of our home businesses—spreadsheets and budgets and marketing plans. Even our human relationships can be relegated down to “networking.” In reality, sometimes what is needed in the course of our business day is for us to simply step outside ourselves and share a smile with someone… I know it sounds simplistic and somewhat Polly-Anna, but smiles really do work. They work for the person on the receiving end and you might be surprised to remind yourself how good it feels to give a smile. Forget the image of the stern and stressed business … Continue reading →

Smile Detection Technology

The ability to electronically detect someone’s smile has been around for a little while. Lat year, Sony unveiled its Smile Shutter features on some cameras, and other manufactures, such as Fuji, offer face (not smile) detection technology on their cameras. And now there is another use for smile and face detection technology–medical use. These technologies analyze different features of a face, from the curving lips, cheekbones that are high, squinting eyes, etc., to determine when someone is smiling. What is the Smile Shutter Feature? With the Smile Shutter feature on selected Sony digital cameras, such as the Cyber-shot DSC-T200, the … Continue reading →

Keeping the Smile Plastered Across the Face

I just returned from a business trip to Norway–just got in to my home town on the West Coast late last night as a matter of fact. And, while I was working long days (11-12 hours) and pretty focused on putting out fires and taking care of work stuff for the bulk of the time I was away, I did have some time to reflect on the basic challenges of customer relations–it dawned on me that as long as I kept that smile across my face, no matter how kooky, crazy and stressful things were behind the scenes–other people thought … Continue reading →

Let’s Find Reasons to Smile

There are days…okay, WEEKS when it dawns on me that I probably haven’t smiled at my kids in I don’t know how long and I know that they haven’t smiled at me either. We go for days grumbling, scolding, and looking disapprovingly at each other. I can’t help but think that a little smiling might make all the difference and change the vibe in our house instantly… When my children were small, I remember the advice was to “catch them doing something good”—while that can still work with the teenager, they aren’t nearly as likely to beam and glow and … Continue reading →

Adult Braces

Like many of you, I had braces as a teenager. It was ugly and painful and it seemed to last forever (both the braces and the teenage years). I have no desire to relive those years and though my teeth have shifted back out of that “perfect” smile, I’d need a darn good reason for getting braces as an adult. So, why are so many adults considering and ultimately getting braces? Braces and the science behind them have come a long way from when I had them as a teenager. Maybe you didn’t get to experience this rite of passage … Continue reading →