You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile

Around this time of the year, with midterms lurking around the corner, and the grey snow still hindering our walks to classes, it becomes difficult to find something to smile about. It becomes much easier to gripe about professors, or roommates, or the food, or a number of other things. For me, sometimes it becomes very hard to find even something positive to think about. Even though, there are millions of things to be thankful for. Starting with the fact that we're receiving a higher education, we're living in above average living conditions compared to the rest of the world. We have access to technology, which we can use for so many different things (my favorite is skyping with family!). Just thinking about some of these things brings a smile to my face.

With just a simple search I found 10 health benefits to smiling! Now I won't list them all, a few I found especially intriguing are; lowered blood pressure, released serotonin and a natural pain reliever, boosts your immune system, and my personal favorite, it's contagious. Without saying a single word you can pass all these benefits to another person, even a stranger, talk about a quick fix. I found all this information on about.com, written by Dr. Mark Stibich. Even the notable LiveStrong campaign has written about this topic (http://www.livestrong.com/article/18859-health-benefits-smiling/) listing some of the same benefits as the article mentioned above.

So to quote Mcdonald's commercial slogan from the 90's "Put a smile on, put a smile on, everybody come on! And put a smile on!"

Frankie

This is my dog. His name is Frankie -- We named him this because when we first got him we had Frank Sinatra playing in the car and he barked with the trumpets. Too cute :D
We rescued him from a puppy mill; this puppy mill was terrible too! The owners had a buffalo in the front yard as a pet. Weird. Anyway, Frankie was obviously abused, and still hasn't gotten over his fear of men and large feet. Over the years he has warmed up to me. As you can see I like to dress him up, he looks so cute in dresses and hats and necklaces.
He's a Pomeranian, and embarrassingly enough, I have a dog purse and LOVE taking him everywhere with me. Even more embarrassingly, I skype with him too. He doesn't quite get the video idea, but he hears my voice and runs to the door. Yeah, I realize that this may come back to haunt me later in life -- But you have to admit, he's a adorable.
P.S.
Don't judge me, I needed something to write about.