I *thought* I had it figured out… but now my posts are aligning to the right? Craziness!
I finally figured out what the problem was — I was using percentage to specify wrapper height, when I needed to use pixels. Granted, now I don’t know how this will affect the rest of the layout. Will it chop off any additional entries? Will it limit layout/post expansion? The sidebar seemed to adjust itself accordingly, which frankly I failed to understand, because it’s shorter than the rest of the content, but we’ll see what happens.
I still have a few things left to edit, i.e. the comments template, and a few bits here and there. But overall, I am so proud of myself! I’m finally on the verge of creating my first real WP template! 
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
