Terms of use

Last updated August 13, 2026.

Agreeing to these terms

These terms are the agreement between you and The Porchlight Journal for the use of theporchlightjournal.com and everything published on it. By reading, printing or sharing any page here, you accept them. If any part of them does not suit you, the remedy is simple and there is no hard feeling in it: stop using the site.

Please read the medical disclaimer below with particular care. It is the most important thing on this page.

Who we are

The Porchlight Journal is an independent publication written and published by Sophia Williams in North Carolina, United States. Sophia is not a doctor, not a nurse, and not any other kind of licensed health professional. She worked for about twenty years as an in home caregiver. That is life experience, not a credential, and this site never treats it as one.

This publication is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any hospital, clinic, university, government agency, medical association or charity. Where these terms say "we", "us" or "our", they mean The Porchlight Journal. Where they say "you", they mean anyone using the site.

What this site is for

This site is general reading. It is a place where one person writes down what she noticed in ordinary houses over twenty years, in plain words, for people who are living something similar. It is offered for information and for comfort, and for nothing else.

It is not a medical service. There is no consultation here, no assessment, no plan, no protocol, no diagnosis, and no treatment. There is no account to open, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing for sale on these pages.

No professional relationship

Reading this site, printing a page from it, or writing to us does not create a doctor and patient relationship, a nurse and patient relationship, a caregiver and client relationship, or any other professional or fiduciary relationship between you and us. We cannot answer medical questions, and we will not try, no matter how kindly the question is asked. Those belong with the doctor who knows the history.

You are responsible for your own decisions and for the decisions you make on behalf of anyone in your care. Any use you make of what you read here is at your own risk.

How you may use the writing

You are welcome to:

• read anything here, as often as you like
• print pages for yourself, for your family, or to take to an appointment
• share links to any page, anywhere
• quote a short passage, so long as you credit The Porchlight Journal and link to the page it came from

You may not:

• republish an article, or a substantial part of one, on another website or in any publication, without our written permission
• copy the site or its pages in bulk by automated means, including scraping, harvesting or systematic downloading
• alter the writing and pass it off as ours, or remove any notice, credit or disclaimer from a copy
• present anything from this site as medical guidance, as professional advice, or as the work of a health professional
• use the site, or anything on it, to sell a product or a service
• use the site for any unlawful purpose, or in any way that could damage it, overload it, or interfere with anybody else's use of it
• attempt to gain access to any part of the site, its server or its data that is not made public

What belongs to whom

All the writing, page design, typography, layout and arrangement on this site is owned by The Porchlight Journal or used with permission, and is protected by United States and international copyright law. The name The Porchlight Journal and the wordmark are ours.

The permissions in the section above are the whole of what is granted. Nothing else is transferred to you by your use of the site. If you would like to reprint something, write and ask, and the answer is often yes.

If you believe material on this site infringes your copyright, write to us at sophia@theporchlightjournal.com with enough detail to identify the work and the page, and we will look into it promptly.

Advertising and affiliate disclosure

We want to be straight with you about how this is paid for, because a reader deserves to know who benefits when they click something.

Some of the writing on this site is promoted with paid advertising. Advertisements lead to a separate landing page on this domain that sits outside the journal. That page carries a sponsored presentation from an independent company.

Certain pages on this domain contain affiliate links. If you follow one of those links and go on to buy something, we may earn a commission from the company that made the sale. That commission is paid by the seller out of its own margin. It costs you nothing extra, and the price you pay is not affected by it in any way.

We are not the seller. We do not manufacture, supply, price, ship or stock anything. We do not take orders, we do not run any checkout, and we do not handle payments, returns, refunds, warranties or customer service. Any purchase you make is a contract between you and that seller, on the seller's site and under the seller's own terms and privacy policy, and any question about an order goes to them.

An advertisement or an affiliate link is not a health recommendation, it is not an endorsement of any result, and it must not be read as one. We make no representation about any third party product or service, and we do not verify what a seller says about its own goods. Read what a seller tells you carefully, and talk to your doctor before you start anything at all that touches your health. Nothing on the journal pages is for sale.

This site also has a small shelf of ordinary household goods, kept separately from the writing at The Cupboard. It is not open. Nothing there can be bought today, there is no stock and no order can be placed, and the listings are published only so the shelf can be set up and checked before it opens. If it does open, the goods sold there are plain household objects, they are not medical devices, and nothing about them is offered as a treatment for anything. No entry in the journal is written to sell them.

How exactly measurement works on the advertising landing page, and what is shared with whom when a sale happens, is set out in the privacy policy.

Links to other websites

Where we link out to somebody else's website, that site is not ours, we do not control it, and we are not responsible for its content, its accuracy, its products, its security or its privacy practices. A link is not an endorsement. Once you leave this domain, you are under their terms, and it is always worth reading them.

The site is provided as it is

The site and everything on it is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all implied warranties, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non infringement.

We write carefully and we try hard to be accurate, but we do not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, error free, or free of anything harmful, or that anything you read here is complete, current, or suitable for your particular situation. Health information changes, and general writing cannot account for one person's history.

Limits on our liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, The Porchlight Journal, Sophia Williams, and anyone working with them 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 connected with your use of this site or your reliance on anything published on it, whether the claim is brought in contract, in tort, under a warranty, or on any other basis, and whether or not we were told such damages were possible.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability for any claim connected with this site will not exceed one hundred United States dollars, or the amount you have paid us, whichever is greater. You have paid us nothing, because this site charges nothing.

Some states do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation of certain damages, so parts of the two sections above may not apply to you. Nothing in these terms limits any liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability for fraud.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless The Porchlight Journal and Sophia Williams from any claim, demand, loss, liability, cost or expense, including reasonable attorney fees, arising out of your use of the site, your breach of these terms, or your violation of any law or of the rights of any other person.

Governing law, and where disputes are heard

These terms, and any dispute arising out of them or out of your use of this site, are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, United States, without regard to its conflict of law rules. You agree that any such dispute will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in the State of North Carolina, and you consent to the jurisdiction of those courts.

This site is operated from the United States and is intended for readers there. If you use it from somewhere else, you do so on your own initiative and you are responsible for compliance with your own local law.

If part of these terms cannot be enforced

If any provision of these terms is held to be unenforceable, that provision will be limited or removed to the smallest extent necessary, and the rest will remain in full force. If we do not enforce a provision straight away, that is not a waiver of it. These terms, together with the privacy policy, are the entire agreement between you and us about the use of this site. You may not assign them. We may assign them if this publication is ever transferred.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. When we do, we will change the date at the top of this page, and a significant change will be described in plain words rather than slipped in quietly. Using the site after a change means you accept the updated terms, so it is worth a look now and then.

How to reach us

Write to sophia@theporchlightjournal.com. A person reads it. We are in North Carolina, in the United States. We do not publish a street address or a telephone number, and we would rather say so than print one that goes nowhere.

And the one line that matters more than all the rest of this page put together: nothing here ever replaces your own doctor.