Teaching yourself web development - not for the faint hearted...

I really wanted to wait to publish this site until I finished it, but I've come to realize that I miss blogging. It helps me get my head straight and it feels good to feel like I'm being heard on days when I'm feeling invisible to the outside world (other than my husband). So today, as I fried my brain trying to figure out how to create a custom blog - I decided - Fuck it - who cares if people see my work in progress. Plus, if I wait until the whole site is done, it may never be published!
When I decided to teach myself web design, I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought it might be a good distraction/hobby that maybe one day could turn into a work from home career. I've never been afraid of a challenge and when it comes to computers, I've always been able to figure things out. Hell, I had a career that was mainly comprised of baptism by fire and I always came out on top. The thing is back then, I had a boss that would help me if I really needed help and if he wasn't around, there was a whole staff of programmers and other technical people that I could discuss things with. Even though they didn't always know enough to help when I was struggling, it was always good to bounce things off of people that had a basic knowledge of what I was doing.
These days, I don't have anyone to go to when I reach a road block. I'm not taking classes so, I don't have a teacher to go to and since my husband is a builder by trade, when I talk about anything technical - I may as well be speaking french because he doesn't have a clue (any more than I do about his field).
Like I said, when I decided to teach myself web design I had no idea how difficult it would be. I thought I knew what I was doing until I I decided to do my own custom blog and now I know that I've come a long way, but I'm far from being any good thus far.
For the last few weeks, I've been down with the flu and haven't gone near the computer since before the holidays. Coming back to it now, has been daunting. Yesterday, after adding a photo gallery to my blog, I went to create a new album and got an error that said 'Internal error- Please contact the administrator for Pond-Hopper.com, and inform them of the time the error occurred. Considering I am the administrator for Pond-Hopper.com, and I had no idea what to do - I was beginning to feel defeated. But l this morning, I was able to figure out how to add the calendar to my blog (without errors) so I'm feeling encouraged again. Baby steps...
With any luck, you'll start to see small changes on my blog and when my site is up and running I'll let you know, but for now - At least I've gotten far enough that I can actually post a blog that shows up. woo-hoo! I was able to import my blog entries from my old blog but unfortunately, was not able to include the comments with it, but at this point beggars can't be choosers and I'm just happy I've gotten this far.
This blog is public so feel free to comment without having to identify yourself (God knows everyone likes it a whole lot better that way since my last blog went down in flames as soon as I made it private). Also, I have not made it known to my family so on this blog, I will have the freedom to be myself without having to censor every little thing I say...

FYI - I added the photo because I'm still testing functionality. It should be a clickable pop-up pic (fingers crossed)...