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When I woke up this morning, she was sleeping on my bed and she looked very happy!

The sentence is about a female cat who was ill.

Why isn't was looking (at this precise moment she was looking)? Since she was ill, the sentence I quoted seems to imply her happiness won't last for long.

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  • To me, there's no real difference between You look good today and You're looking good today. But whereas You look good in that little black dress sounds perfectly natural, You are looking good in that little black dress sounds like something only an "Indian English" speaker would say. And even the idiomatically contracted You're looking good in that little black dress could sound at least a little bit "odd" in many contexts. In your exact context, past continuous would be less likely, but it's perfectly okay - it just emphasises that the cat continued to look happy. – FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica Sep 26 '18 at 14:45
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The sentence sounds OK, and there's some logic in the difference between tenses. She 'looked good' at the moment he looked or glanced at her after he woke up - that was his short-time perception of her, while she definitely was sleeping continuously. 'You're looking good' is typically said by the 'beholder' while looking at someone.

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