Taking Pictures Of Coins And Contributing To The Forum; Did A Bunch Of Coins And I Will Say The Pic

It's tough to photograph coins in holders, 2X2s, mint cellophane, etc. Take them out when possible (if there's no risk of damaging the coin).
Your wife is correct: lighting is the most critical - and difficult - component of coin photography.
I use a modification of Earle42's method, as many of our members do. Is that what you mean by "coffee cup method"?

A Phone, A Light, Some Books, And A Bottle Cap For Good Coin Pictures

Glad to have you here @snit and similarly happy that you want to be more involved. The goal here at CCF is education, but that can take many forms--don't stress if you are a world expert on some narrow category, writing papers and giving presentations. Knowledge takes many forms.

Depending on your area of interest, you could create threads about the things that you do collect. For example, if you CRH, you could keep good records of what you find in what quantity of searching and post some of those data in a thread. If you have an experience selling so-called junk silver at a LCS, you could create a thread talking about at what multiple to face value they were paying. One easy way to learn (and subsequently gently teach others) is to hang around the US Modern Errors and Varieties subforum. Perhaps our busiest subforum, you can learn from others by lurking and then post tentative explanations to see how your opinion matches up with others. But if none of these are your bag, then there are plenty of other fun areas to hang out.