In the meantime, you're expecting everyone else to do your work for you while you "wait" until your classes start. Why not get ahead of the game and do the tutorials so you learn something now instead of waiting months and gaining nothing from it? A quick search in Google (or any other search engine if Google is still giving you problems) for "HTML Tutorials Free" and "CSS Tutorials Free" will get you a lot of totally Free Tutorials for both HTML and CSS and you really should start with regular CSS unless you read the CSS3: The Missing Manual book which takes you through them both at the same time, a very good book to read.

I truly think you've already wasted months of learning by not doing just that. Editing a few things here and there that's just fine, but in the end 90% of your editing has resulted in someone else having to fix it because you have not got the knowledge to really know what you're editing.

It's one thing to ask about how something actually works with the code, and totally another to not bother with it and expect it to be done for you. I would truly love to see you start learning things and having things start clicking for you, and the feeling you get from doing that is amazing.

Take the time to do it Matt, you will truly be glad you did in the end, and it will really help when you go to classes for it later, it most definitely can not hurt at all.

Maybe your new "friend" (see avatar) is distracting you from your studies

I think you might do better to start with a book that presents the HTML/CSS info in a logical order rather than W3C where everything is separate examples and you can jump all over the place, getting off track.

If we can't get you to pick up a book , at least bookmark this (and refer to it often) while you're building a site:
http://reference.sitepoint.com/css

You'll have a good start to your Web Design classes if you get familiar with the basics now.

@Jo Ann I have things to get done in real life. The time I do spend on the computer is time that I value and try to get what I can done, i'm not superman I can't stuff all this coding into a couple months of learning. Coding has got to be done by reaction for me, i.e. me swatting a fly away, I have to just be able to do it. 90% of the coding isn't other peoples work either, sometimes I use templates sometimes I do not, but you can't say that my time here has just been a waste. I think that you're temper is getting to you, but I can't say that mine isn't getting to me either. I'm not going to argue with you over learning html and css, and about my "wasted" time here because I don't see it that way. I've learned a lot from people who have been there to help, if you notice, my posts aren't really related to anything similar, so I am learning. Your describing me as someone who doesn't learn lessons, I have to be both the teacher and the student in this area of work. For some reason I get singled out because I haven't read a book on CSS, if you're speaking for everyone then I just have to say this, if you don't want to help me that's fine. But if I seen someone who needed help it's my nature to be of service. Please recognize this, i'm trying my best.

@Paintbrush She's my little hunny bunny. Too bad my honey wagon is away being worked on.

Wow Matt, so because you don't have time to learn, you think others need to do the work for you? That's the most irrational response I've ever heard. I never did say 90% of your coding was from others, I said 90% of your "editing", not the same. Anyways, I'm done here, you obviously think I'm angry here which I'm not. I also cannot help it if you are, that's your issue not mine. I'm just trying to get people to understand that you need to learn things here instead of everyone doing it for you. And your reasoning here is so entirely selfish that I can't even find a good comment for it.

Suffice it to say I won't be bothering to read any of your posts from this point on, and those that want to cradle you and do the work for you are more than welcome to do so. Have a great day.

@Jo Ann I don't want to cause conflict in any way, i'm sorry if you feel that i'm being selfish in this situation but I feel like your making me look stupid in front of everyone. If I slow down and think things through, i'm sure you'll realize that i'm not stupid. I want to help and one day achieve your status on CoffeeCup but as you can see, i'm not html savvy. If you choose not to read my posts anymore that's fine. Everyone gets angry once in a while. I'll try and avoid posting on your posts as well so that I don't put you in a position to make me look stupid again.. thanks for everything

OK, calm down here!

I know that I have gone far too far in writing code for you, Matt, but I also enjoy helping when I can. And I even learn something from it, some challenges I've had with your stuff have made me research and actually given me solutions that you could live with. I guess you will have the same feeling once you start explaining this stuff to someone.

And you have made some progress. Remember, with that background for the navigation I didn't actually spell out the code as I might have done a couple of weeks ago, just pointed your nose at where to look, and you found it and were able to change it the way you wanted. I'm sure next time you want to change something in a theme, you will have a better idea where to look and what to look for.

Also, I have seen that you have developed a better eye for colour combinations. To begin with the colours were actually 'fighting' each other for attention. (Still waiting for you to come off that black-ish background though ).

It's always a good idea to start learning something from scratch, so don't discard the good advice that has been given to you here.

Matt the best way to tackle any new thing is one step at a time.I know that sounds simplistic but take a navigation panel. Start with a basic html file and use the menu maker in the editor and study how it does what it does, change things and note the effect. This applies to all the css, tags, scripts etc.

I received some fantastic clues from this forum but I am not going to get them to do stuff for me. That is the fun part. Back off the finishing of your site and concentrate on the building blocks.

Actually Matt you are a breath of fresh air and I believe we can all see ourselves when battling to create web sites.in the beginning. As I said before and it will apply to your studies. Take notes, try the examples understand why things happen. In that way you begin to manipulate things to suit yourself using the tools and rules that apply.

You have time at least 30 mins per day to do a tutorial, not just read it but do it and see it work.

I cannot wait to ask you questions, not games though this is my game. play this as enthusiastically as you do your online games.

If you are willing to learn and put the effort into it, here is a great place to start.

https://www.udemy.com/courses/search?q=css

I have taken a few courses here and it helped out immensely.

@Inger I've calmed down, and wanted to say thank you personally for helping me through my struggle. In addition to learning how to write some CSS codes I have learned the foundations of how to build a stable website from you and I appreciate each code that you write for me. I'm going to take some time out today and see what Scott has posted for me and try my best to learn some html/css. I don't like arguing but it's just my nature sometimes I navigate straight to a fight. I don't really necessarily like to argue, especially with someone who is as nice as Jo Ann, but even if i'm wrong i'm right. I'm sorry..

@Prism Yeah Prism I understand. I have to take my time and learn how to build a website by myself and myself only. I don't really think it can be done overnight , but I will try my best to take control of what I can and assemble something a bit more intelligent when it comes to a web page. Usually I take templates and go over the CSS code and can read what it's saying but if I write from scratch I can't even think of the first header codes. Completely my fault for starting a fight over this..

@Scott Thanks Scott i'll check it out!

I'm always glad to help you Matt but I'm going to do it in a way that help you learn. I'm with Inger, I enjoy helping others and a lot of times it forces me to learn another aspect of coding I didn't know. Remember to take it slow and back up you file before you make changes. Also remember to give it a try yourself before asking. This will help you learn. Looking forward to your next avatar.