1. Acceptance of these terms
These Terms of Use ("Terms") form a legal agreement between you and The Good Ordinary covering your access to and use of thegoodordinary.com and everything published on it (the "Site"). By visiting the Site, you accept these Terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use the Site.
Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information and forms part of these Terms.
2. Who we are
The Good Ordinary is an independent lifestyle publication written and operated by Kayla Whitmore in Austin, Texas, United States. In these Terms, "we", "us" and "our" mean The Good Ordinary, and "you" means the person using the Site.
We publish articles about everyday style, home cooking, small-space living, wellness habits and short trips. We are a publication, not a shop: the Site sells nothing, takes no payments and creates no account for you.
3. Who may use this site
The Site is intended for a general adult audience and is not directed to children under 13. If you are under 18, please use the Site with the involvement of a parent or guardian, and do not send us email without their permission.
You agree to use the Site only for lawful purposes and in a way that does not interfere with anyone else's use of it.
4. What you may do with our content
We are happy for people to read, save, print and share what we publish. Specifically, you may:
- read the Site and print or save pages for your own personal, non-commercial use;
- link to any page here, from anywhere, without asking us first;
- quote a short extract — a sentence or two, or a single paragraph — in a review, article, post or classroom discussion, provided you credit The Good Ordinary and link back to the page you took it from;
- cook a recipe you find here for yourself, your family, your friends or your neighbours, as often as you like.
That is a licence to use the content, not a transfer of ownership. It is personal to you, non-exclusive, revocable, and does not extend to any commercial use.
5. What you may not do
Without our prior written permission, you may not:
- republish, syndicate, translate or redistribute our articles, photographs or illustrations, in whole or in substantial part, on any website, platform, newsletter, print publication or app;
- copy a recipe's text and method and present it as your own, or publish it without credit and a link;
- use any content here for advertising, for a product listing, or in any other commercial context;
- use our name, logo or wordmark in a way that suggests we endorse, sponsor or are affiliated with you, your product or your organisation;
- scrape, crawl, mirror or systematically download the Site, or use automated tools that place an unreasonable load on it;
- use content from the Site to train, fine-tune or evaluate a machine learning model or generative AI system, other than as expressly permitted by applicable law;
- frame or embed the Site so that it appears to be part of another website, or remove, obscure or alter any copyright or credit notice;
- attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Site, its servers or any connected system, or introduce malware, or probe for vulnerabilities other than by reporting what you find to us in good faith;
- impersonate The Good Ordinary or Kayla Whitmore, or publish anything that falsely suggests it came from us.
6. Intellectual property
All text, photographs, illustrations, layout, design and source code on the Site are owned by The Good Ordinary or used with permission, and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws of the United States and other countries. "The Good Ordinary" is our publication name and is used as our trade mark.
Photographs and illustrations on the Site are produced in-house using digital imaging tools, including AI image generation. We do not use third-party stock photography, and we do not knowingly publish anyone else's work as our own.
If you believe something on the Site infringes your copyright, write to kayla@thegoodordinary.com with enough detail to identify the work, the page on which it appears and your contact details. We take these notices seriously and act on legitimate ones promptly.
7. Republication and permissions
If you would like to use more than a short quote — for a magazine, a course, a newsletter, a press piece or a client project — write to us. We answer permission requests, we often say yes, and we do not charge students and teachers.
8. Messages you send us
If you email us a question, a correction, a tip or a story of your own, you keep ownership of what you wrote. By sending it, you give us permission to read it, reply to it and, if it is genuinely useful to other readers, quote from it in a piece — anonymously and without your email address, unless you tell us in writing that we may use your name.
Please do not send us confidential information or anything you do not have the right to share, and please do not send unsolicited creative work, product pitches or press releases expecting payment or publication. We are under no obligation to publish, reply to, or keep anything you send.
9. No professional advice
Everything on this Site is published for general information and enjoyment. It reflects one person's experience of her own home, kitchen, wardrobe and routines.
Nothing here is medical, psychological, nutritional, financial, legal or professional advice, and it is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who knows your situation. Articles filed under Wellness describe habits that have worked for the author personally; they are not clinical recommendations and they do not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition. If you have a health concern, talk to a doctor. If you are making a financial or legal decision, talk to someone licensed to advise you on it.
10. Recipes, food safety and allergies
Recipes here are written for home cooks, tested in a home kitchen, and not tested in a commercial or laboratory setting. Ovens, pans, ingredients and altitudes differ, and so will your results.
You are responsible for cooking safely: handling raw meat, poultry, eggs and seafood properly, cooking food to a safe internal temperature, and checking every ingredient against any allergy or dietary restriction that applies to you or to the people you are feeding. Ingredient names and formulations change; always read the packaging. We cannot accept responsibility for how a recipe turns out in your kitchen, or for any allergic or adverse reaction.
11. Editorial independence and disclosure
We write about things because we used them, not because someone paid us. As of the effective date of these Terms, the Site carries no advertising, no sponsored posts, no paid placements and no affiliate links, and we accept no payment in exchange for coverage or for a favourable opinion.
If that ever changes, we will label the arrangement clearly at the top of the affected piece, in plain language, and update this section — never in small print at the bottom. Any product sent to us for possible coverage will be described as such in the piece itself.
12. Accuracy and corrections
We work to get things right, but we publish quickly and we are human. Content may become out of date, and prices, opening hours, availability and product details change without notice. We make no promise that everything on the Site is complete, current or error-free.
If you spot a mistake, write to kayla@thegoodordinary.com. We correct errors of fact promptly and note the correction on the piece.
13. Links to other websites
The Site links to websites and social platforms we do not own or control. We include them because we think they are useful, not as an endorsement of everything on them. We are not responsible for the content, products, practices or privacy policies of any third-party site, and following a link is at your own risk.
14. Availability and changes to the site
We publish on our own schedule and may change, move, update or remove any part of the Site at any time, without notice. We do not guarantee that the Site will always be available, uninterrupted or free of errors, and we may suspend it for maintenance or for any other reason.
15. Disclaimer of warranties
The Site and everything on it are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, accuracy and non-infringement.
We do not warrant that the Site will meet your requirements, that it will be secure or uninterrupted, that defects will be corrected, or that the Site or the servers that make it available are free of viruses or other harmful components.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties. Where that is the case, the exclusions above apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these Terms limits any right you have as a consumer that cannot lawfully be limited.
16. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, The Good Ordinary and Kayla Whitmore will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill or opportunity, arising out of or in connection with your use of, or inability to use, the Site — whether the claim is based in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability or any other theory, and even if we have been advised that such damages are possible.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Site will not exceed one hundred United States dollars (US$100).
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.
17. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless The Good Ordinary and Kayla Whitmore from any claim, demand, loss, liability and reasonable legal fees arising out of your misuse of the Site, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or of the rights of a third party.
18. Termination of access
We may block access to the Site, without notice, to anyone who breaches these Terms or whose traffic harms the Site or other readers. The sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive — intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification and governing law — continue to apply afterwards.
19. Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms as the Site changes. When we do, we will revise the "last updated" date at the top of this page, and, for a significant change, note it clearly here for at least 30 days. Continuing to use the Site after a change means you accept the revised Terms. The version on this page is always the current one.
20. Governing law and venue
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, United States, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. You and we agree that any dispute arising out of these Terms or the Site will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Travis County, Texas, and both of us consent to the jurisdiction of those courts.
If you are a consumer resident in a jurisdiction whose law entitles you to bring proceedings in your local courts, or which applies protections that cannot be set aside by agreement, this section does not take those rights away from you.
21. General provisions
- Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the rest remains in full effect and the unenforceable provision is applied to the maximum extent permitted.
- No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision on one occasion, we have not given up the right to enforce it later.
- Assignment. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to a successor if the publication changes hands, and we will say so on the Site.
- No agency. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, employment or agency relationship between you and us.
- Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Site, and replace anything said before.
- Headings. Section headings are for convenience and do not affect how these Terms are read.
22. How to contact us
For permissions, corrections, copyright notices, legal questions or anything else about these Terms:
- Email: kayla@thegoodordinary.com
- Publication: The Good Ordinary, an independent publication operated by Kayla Whitmore
- Location: Austin, Texas, United States