Yesterday I got a comment from Blair, the fabulous author of Blairadise, to say that she was “spreading some bloggy love” and that she’d given On Sabbatical in Sandton a Liebster Blog Award.

Awesome! Thanks, Blair. Before I say more about the award, let me tell you more about Blair and Blairadise.

Blair is an American girl from North Carolina who fell in love with an Afrikaans boy from Pretoria. They got married and had a baby who was born two days after my birthday and who is two months and one day older than The Princess. I love following her blog, Blairadise, to hear about what’s going on in their lives (Pretoria is so close to Jozi and yet SO far). But besides telling her readers what’s happening in her little family, Blair is also an insatiable, self-confessed Internet-aholic. I aspire to be like her when I grow up. Blair finds EVERYTHING on-line. She shops, she browses, she wins competitions, she gets decor ideas, she downloads party packs. She is my internet hero. My excuse is that in 1996 when I was 17, stuck at boarding school in George and literally didn’t know how to turn on a computer let alone access the internet, Blair would’ve been 14, exposed to the internet boom in the States and the rise of on-line stores and was therefore able to grow up as an internet shopper. I want to be part of the on-line shopping boom, I just feel overwhelmed, don’t know how and don’t know where to begin. But Blair is helping.

For example, I learnt from her that J Crew has started to ship globally and that they’re shipping for free for one month until 30 April – that’s free shipping, free returns and duty free shopping! How cool is that for us, poor deprived shoppers at the southern most tip of Africa? I feel like buying something JUST because the shipping is free. Mind you, we’ll probably be slapped with import duties on this side, so beware of that…

Anyway, back to The Liebster Blog Award and spreading the bloggy love to my top five blog reads.

1. Growing On Up

A superbly written blog about a twenty-something South African girl who recently moved to the concrete jungle where dreams are made: New York City. She is growing on up, looking for adventures, lurve, career satisfaction and drinking a fair amount of New York cocktails in between. A younger version of Carrie Bradshaw, really.

2. Truffle Licker

Also a fantastic writer who’s very funny and totally my kind of writing humour. “Dark Horse” (the author’s nom de plume) moved back to Jozi from London. She’s also a twenty-something girl looking for lurve in between cocktails wine and shopping. She’s a private school Jozi girl who doesn’t leave the Parks and tells it like it is. The sad news is that she hasn’t written a post for millions of months and this is my attempt to get her to get back on the horse, Dark Horse! But go and read her posts that do exist from beginning to end for a really good, witty, intelligent laugh.

3. The Friendly Tour

This is the story of a thirty-something Belgian girl who has got it together to live out the dreams that so many of us have, but never manage to actualise: to quit our jobs, pack a 12kg backpack and travel around the world for twelve whole months. (And not to shop along the way – no space in the backpack! This may have been the hardest part for me…) You will either need to read the language of Voltaire to follow this blog, or you can simply click on the British flag for Google to translate her posts into English. Her world tour ends in mid-May…

4. One of the Boys

I came across this blog when I was perusing the finalist blogs in the SA’s Best Mommy Blogger competition last year. It’s written by a Jozi mom who is an impressively regular blogger, who organises Jozi blogger meet-up’s and who seems to achieve an amazing amount despite working and raising two boys. Lots of baby-related give-aways and handy information for moms and the site layout and pictures always look gorgeous. She has just over 1,000 followers and the Liebster Award is supposed to be reserved for blogs with fewer than 200 but I saw many fellow Liebster bestowers broke that rule once, so I’m breaking it here…

For the fifth winner of the Liebster Award from me, please comment and suggest any great blogs that you know with fewer than 200 followers…

For the winners, heere’s how the Liebster Award works:

The Rules:

1. Link back to the person who gave it to you.

2. Post the award on your blog for all to see!

3. Give the award to 5 of your favorite bloggers (with 200 followers or less).

4. Leave a comment on your chosen blogs to let them know that they have been given the Liebster Blog award.

Thanks again, Blair, for the award 🙂