I figured out my problem, the issue was that there was actually a second, older, version of the mod in another sub-folder the .minecraft/mods folder.
when I deleted/ renamed the main mod file minecraft decided to try to load the older mod instead. It then proceded to throw me an error because the mod's path did not match what was expected either by the mods config or by forge.
deleting the older mod file and then renaming the newer file fixed my problem
Thanks for the help