Joe,
Building your own web page from scratch, even using templates, can be a bear. But there are at least two free services that make it easy: Blogger.com and Wordpress.com. Spend a little time with both, set up a free account and blogs and experiment a little. They don't have all the bells and whistles, but have more than enough to allow you to create multiple blogs quickly and easily with only a handful of templates. They are so easy to use that I link my web page to blogs created with both services because I can update these on the fly and customize them to fit my needs (e.g., law, politics, writing, etc.). I don't sell anything or allow advertising on my personal web page, so I don't really even need my personal blog page except that I want complete freedom to customize it as I see fit and no advertisements on my page, and I want my name to be my address. Setting up a blog through my own web page is work which is why I have not gotten around to it and may never get around to it as long as Blogger and Wordpress remain free and fit my needs.
Try both services (or any others our friends may suggest) and select the one that is most intuitive and easiest to use. I have no preference and use both fairly regularly as time allows.