Greetings from Green Country (NE Oklahoma)

[sunstone]

Hi, I'm introducing myself because I really, really hope I have found a forum where people are willing to help you and not just slap your hand if you ask too many questions (as in that other forum that shall remain nameless that some of you might have tried to seek WordPress assistance).

I purchased and downloaded the AdSense WordPress Theme package after struggling for three solid weeks with another site, trying to configure it to meet my client's needs. (I used "client" loosely here; she's a blind friend using JAWS and was/is my WordPress guinea pig.)

I found a theme I think I can use. Had it installed (from scratch) and up and running in ONE HOUR, complete with two posts, several categories, etc. Went to bed feeling really good about the world in general and with renewed hope that I can actually use WordPress for my many sites that I'm completely overhauling.

This morning, a Monday, I began the "work week" (does anybody ever get any days off?) in the attempt to further customize the site before I move to a "graphics" mode to customize the header graphic.

Well, I seem to have lost my posts.

So, with this introduction, I'm hoping someone will take pity on me and try to lead me through this. Of course, in my eagerness, I didn't type first in WordPad, then copy/paste into the editor. I typed directly into the editor and failed to copy/paste into a text file. I hope my posts aren't gone for good, because I was in a really good frame of mind when I wrote them and I'm definitely not there now!

And, by way of an actual "Introduction", I'm a retired teacher who has worked also in printing and publishing and have webmastered several sites over the past ten years. I feel fairly comfortable with HTML, moderately so with CSS, but PHP might as well be in Arabic characters as far as I am concerned. I've found editing WordPress files challenging. The Instant WordPress Themes makes it SO MUCH EASIER, but, still, I've had some problems.

We live in a rural area. I have no car. So my connection to the world is the Internet. I can't hop in the car and run to a big huge chain bookstore to pick up a tome that might answer my questions, and all such tomes previously acquired are horribly out of date.

Aside from this, it's a gorgeous fall day in northeastern Oklahoma. We had a gentle rain last night. The cats are unhappy because the grass is wet, so the birds are feeling free to gather under the feeders to collect what's fallen on the ground. And I'm on my second pot of coffee!