The Pagan Mom Blog

My posts recently have been somewhat heavy duty. I love writing about those things that get me emotional or revved up. But there is always a need for some downtime. So I am just going to do a more mundane “this is what I am up to” type post.

First off last night I had  a girl’s night out with some local Twitter gals. We went to a great wine bar called Sante. Never thought I would ever get around to doing girl’s night out, but look at me now peeps!

After much laughter and drinking at Sante we went to Tressa’s Jazz Bar, where this pic takes place. All in all, it was a great night!

Friday I have an Honor Roll celebration to go to for the oldest. She has yet to not be on Honor Roll lol. She fluctuates between A/B Honor Roll and A Honor Roll. The middle gal missed it because she got a C in science. But it’s her goal to bring that grade up so she can be on the next Honor Roll. This is where sibling rivalry can be a good thing.

Saturday I am picking up our groceries from the church that we ordered. The org is called Angel Food Ministries. This is the first time we ordered from them and I plan on posting about how well that works out for us. If it does work out then we may buy a month’s worth of stuff next time, but we will see.

Sunday I will be at a potluck lunch for Mother Grove. We will be gathering to discuss what needs to be done to get the Goddess Temple built and how we play a part in that. Plus it’s food lol. I think I might make a spinach quiche (which I have never made before) for this event.

Monday I am buying movie tickets for Molly to see Twilight: New Moon. We have a group going and she is ecstatic.

And Sat the 21st is our town’s holiday parade. We are planning on going and kids are thrilled. Last year they had a Winter Solstice float, made my heart smile!

Also I have been asked to review a product for a company. I am not naming names or product as of yet but I am looking forward to trying this out. Actually I think Mr.P is more excited than I am lol! I was given a choice between two things and he really pushed for one of them, after a family vote he got his wish. More on that later when I do the review of course. Oh and in light of a recent post I did, I will be disclosing the endorsement and claiming the income on my taxes.

In addition to that I received a great email yesterday by a soon-to-be launched pagan parenting website. They wanted to see if I would work with them and be their Pagan Of the Month. I replied YES naturally and I am currently waiting to hear back. I was very surprised and honored when I read the email 100 times in disbeleif. I will of course post about this when the site is launched.

I am STILL looking for work. Nothing yet. I am planning on targeting a few more places in the next week. Other than that, not much else is going on. Hope all is well in your families. Please share if you have something exciting coming up!

Maybe I am being too cranky, but I am tired of people still blogging complaints about the guidelines the FTC has imposed on people doing endorsements.  I can understand it after the initial imposing of said guidelines but now it’s just a dead horse. So can we please quit complaining? Seriously?

And too I am looking at this with the accountant’s mind. See the thing is, people seem to think that reviewing products and keeping said products are “free”. The reality is it’s not. First off someone is giving you something in exchange for a service. Income is not just money but the fair market value of anything you receive in exchange for a service. If you don’t do the review, the company more or less is going to want the product back in the same condition it was sent in or the cost of the item. Absolutely nothing in this world is “free”, it costs someone something. If a company sends you an item that they sell for $40, they lose that sale. Assuming a 50% markup it costs them $20 plus shipping costs and then the other $20 lost in sales. Yea, it’s free to you but they are paying for it. And if you review that item they have paid you with that item to do the review.

Now I know some are going to say, “I don’t review that much”. No, some people don’t and there are some people who set out to make it a “career”. However, if you do reviews you should be reporting the fair market value (retail value in this case) as your income. If you do one review a month for items at about $40 a pop, that is $480 in income. May not seem like alot but it can put you in a new tax bracket depending on about 100 different factors (kids, wages, annuities, day care expenses,standard deductions, itemizing deductions, etc etc). Now with FTC guidelines the IRS is going to be looking at bloggers and work at home mom incomes even more. Even moreso now, working from home will become a red flag for auditors to review your return more carefully. This isn’t to scare you, this is just the truth. And don’t get into the mentality that the IRS is going to go after large corporations. First off small business and what I call Schedule C’rs (work from home people) make up the larger portion of businesses in the country. And who do you think will be easier to audit? Yep, the small business. Larger corporations take more amount of time to comb through everything. The IRS is probably going to go for what is easier and less time consuming.

Lastly, I have to say you should be VERY careful about announcing on your blog or twitter that you won’t be including the info on your return. I have already witnessed this once…dangerous stuff. The IRS offers rewards for people reporting others who are committing tax fraud (ie: not claiming all sources of income). And announcing it on your blog or twitter can make it very easy to locate you. Nothing is hidden well on the internet!