Thanks to everyone for the great advice, and especially to Stan for taking so much time to tidy up my code! I am learning as much (if not more) on these forums as I am in my HTML class. It's nice to have alternate perspectives to complement my textbook, which is sometimes more than a little outdated it seems.

I wish I didn't have to go back to work at the end of the month (I'm a college writing instructor and I had the summer off to learn some web design). I have saved all of your wonderful comments and will be returning to them as soon as I again have an opportunity to work on my pages.

Thanks also to leviathon for the tip about the grids. I definitely will check those out. And yes, mission, I agree, it helps to be open-minded to the freedom that web design has to offer. It's definitely a different animal than print and doesn't have to be viewed as restrictive when one realizes that the design theories are simply a bit different here. In fact, there's a lot more freedom online which simultaneously sparks my creative energy and also gets me into trouble. ;)

Happy holiday weekend, all!