1. The Bible. I want to grow my faith and more importantly set a good example for my wife and kids. Although I didn't always enjoy going to church as a kid, most of the time I did and a lot of my best childhood memories are about church activities, doing daily devotions with my parents, etc. I want my kids to have those same good memories.
2. Chinese. My wife is Chinese and I want to be able to understand what she's saying to her friends about me:) I also want our son to learn it and preserve his mom's cultural heritage.
3. Math and Physics. No it's not as boring as it sounds. I'm into model rockets so math and physics are actually useful to me. Plus it keeps my mind sharp and that's a good thing.
4. Photography. Pictures are a great way to preserve memories and we just bought a really cool digital camera so I want to make sure it doesn't just sit in the closet like lots of the stuff I buy. I also don't want to use it just for the sake of using it - I want my pictures to be good.
5. Graphic Design. I don't aspire to be an artist, but I want to be competent enough to be able to throw together a good WordPress theme or 2.
6. PHP Programming. Also related to WordPress, I want to become expert at PHO programming. Besides WordPress I can see my man cave filled with all kinds of gadgets that need custom programming so this will also be a cross-over skill.
7. Small Engine Repair. I've got 2 chain saws to repair and I'd rather learn to do it myself instead of paying someone else to do it for me.
8. Wood Working. I've got a lot of things I want to build for my man cave (shelving, a work bench, etc) so I'm going to get this DEWALT Table Saw I've had my eye on (and possibly a Router and Benchtop Router Table) and start doing some wood working.
9. Home Brewing. Since I'm cutting back on my beer drinking I'm going to focus on quality instead of quantity. I've been wanting to learn how to brew my own beer for awhile now and this is going to be the year I do it.
10. Guitar. I've always wanted to learn how to play guitar and if I can save enough money to buy a Gibson Flying V, I'm going to learn this year.

There. I think that's enough to keep me busy and out of trouble.

Even though I'm going to be without adult supervision it's not going to be one big party. I'm actually planning on starting a program of walking to lose weight. I really need to lose my gut and I figure if I can lose 10 or 15 lbs while the wife is away, she'll be so thrilled she won't notice how much money I spent while she was away. I'm also thinking about taking a couple of days to go to Bishop, CA. I really love it down there but my wife doesn't really like to go there. It would be nice to visit without having to drag her along to a place she doesn't enjoy.

I found this book by accident while searching for a personal finance book on Amazon. Since I've been dabbling with the idea of starting my own business with my wife's help, I figured this book might be worth looking at. I figured wrong. Instead of being a book on how a wife can help her husband, it is more of a manual on how to manipulate him into what she wants him to be. The first give away is the table of contents. For example, Chapter 1 is titled 'The "Team Work" Decision: Great Ideas Come Before Great Actions.' The problem is the "decision" the author is talking about isn't one that a husband and wife have reached together, but one the wife has reached on her own to be a stay at home mom. Here is a passage from chapter 1:

Is your secret (or not so secret) desire to be a stay-at-home mom? If so, you are NOT alone. Many working mothers would prefer to stay home with their children, if their husband's income alone could support the family.

Gee, if only under-performing husbands would just get off their lazy butts and find a better paying jobs, women everywhere could fulfill their desire to stay at home and live off their husbands' income. Here is another passage:

However, without guidance on how to make enough money to be able to afford to have their wife stay home with the children, and for lack of a better alternative, the situation continues.

In How to Help Your Husband, you will be taken step-by-step through the actions that can give you the life you want, but the decision is up to you.

Maybe you're not too lazy to get a better paying job - maybe you're just too ignorant! Thank God this book is available to your wife so she can set you straight. And notice how the decision belongs to the wife? This much crap already, and we're not even done with the first chapter! Let's skim through the rest of the book.

Chapter 3 (Knowledge Is Power - And More Money!) sounds good, but it's really about the husband spending time and energy to gain more knowledge in the hope it will enable him to get a higher paying job to "better" support his wife. In other words, the husband expends the effort, while the wife reaps the reward.

Chapter 4 (Is Your Husband Underpaid?) includes sections to help the wife judge whether her husband is "worthy" (Resources on salary surveys) and interfere with his work relationships (How to help him negotiate a raise). In addition, there is a very helpful section (When it's time to move on) to help the wife determine when the husband should quit his present job and find another. What if the husband likes his present job, though?

I quit reading before Chapter 5 (Networking: A Husband and Wife Activity That Can Get Your Husband a Better Paying Job), but based on the first 4 chapters, it's probably full of instructions on how the wife can control her husband's personal and professional relationships. Chapter 7 (Marketing Your Husband) is probably about how the husband is a slob, and what the wife can do about it.

The rest of the chapters continue in the same vein, and I would stop here, except that Chapter 10 (Continue to Grow) deserves extra comment. Continue to Grow... what? By this point in the book, the wife should already have achieved her secret (or not so secret) desire to be a stay at home mom and live off of her husband's income. Apparently that isn't enough. The first section of Chapter 10 is titled "How to make sure he keeps that better paying job." In other words, how to make sure he can continue to support the wife in the manner she's become accustomed to. My question is, after all this "progress" the wife has "enabled" the husband to achieve, why would this even be a matter of concern? Is it possible that the husband might find he preferred his old, lower paying job and might try to go back to it? Is the author saying the wife's ability to stay home and not work is more important than the husband's satisfaction with his job? Is so, then the talk of "Team Work" in the earlier chapters is nothing but a big load of crap. Even more offensive to me is the second section of the chapter - "Moving up to the next level." WTF??? STILL not happy??? At this point, not only does the wife get to stay at home, she's even possibly convinced her husband to stay at a job he doesn't like just to maintain a higher income. Now, they (meaning he), need to keep moving "up?" I guess some people are just NEVER satisfied.

Should you buy this book? I would not recommend it.

Ken