The Liebster award

The Liebster blog award is one of the coolest blogging awards I have received, because it is a different take on the chain-blog. It recognizes blogs with fewer than 200 followers in the hopes of expanding their readership.

I do not deny that followers are important to me; every time a new follower signs up I do a little happy dance, and if one leaves I ponder what I am doing wrong. Just as blogging has become more to me than updates on our life in France, my followers have become more than just people who read my blog. They are my gateway to blog-world and to other remarkable blogs. Followers also answer questions and solve problems through their comments; and at a more basic level, followers are like friends.

And so a GIANT merci beaucoup for the award Aidan! Aidan’s blog is Conjugating Irregular Verbs: letters from my dining table in the south of France. My first thought on reading her post was that her blog would have been on the list of my five favorites, and my second was what, she doesn’t have 200 followers?

So after narrowing down my favorites (liebster in German means dearest, favorite or beloved) I’ve come up with these five blogs that I believe deserve more followers. I hope you have the time to visit them and have a look yourself.

1. Zosia at Polonica: Home Again. After 21 years of living and working in Canada, she’s back in Poland and keeping this journal of rediscovering her home country. Through her posts and her photographs I’m becoming acquainted with a Poland I would like to visit someday. I’m also impressed that she posts each and every post in Polish as well as English, it dwarfs my attempt at trans-posting (?) in Latvian!

2. Mook at Hello Latvia. After growing up in Australia, Mook has now been living in Latvia for ten years. I see the posts about her two sons as lessons on how to raise a couple of boys, but I also appreciate the insight on a country that has shaped my life despite never having lived there, from another mother that can look at it with the eyes of someone not having lived there her entire life.

3. Bridget at Tales of a Tai Tai. I read her blog for the first time because of the similarities in our blogs’ names – a tai tai is also a woman who stays at home – and then I was hooked. She lives in Hong Kong with her husband and 5 week old son, and the last month I’ve been reliving the joys of being a first-time parent through her posts as we start our life as a family of four here in Clermont. Bridget’s Hong Kong is alive and vibrant, as are her high-quality pictures.

4. B at Is There Such a thing as too much cheese. I’m sorry I discovered this blog shortly before she moved from France back to Australia, as I could have used the insights on French culture, traveling and food. However her journey is only getting more exciting as she awaits the birth of her first with her husband in Melbourne. (And the due date is soon, can’t wait to meet little B through the blog!)

5. Momma at HJ Underway. Having just moved to Paris from the East Coast (of the US) with  husband and little boy HJ, her brand new blog is a fresh look on the expatriation process with all its trials and snags. I can sense the excitement of it all and it reminds me of our arrival here in France; Momma, I hope you don’t lose that spark!

If you would like to keep the blog love going, you

- link back to the blogger who awarded you as a big thanks!

- copy and paste the blog award on your blog

- reveal your 5 blog picks

- let them know you choose them by leaving a comment on their blog

Thanks to each and every one of my followers, subscribers and readers, and I hope you enjoy my five picks!