UW, take a day or two with Wordpress and you'll get the hang of it. I found some sweet little dummy tutorials for it that really helped me focus how to use it.
Also remember, you don't have to use the php to call the headers, side, and footer, you can make one template that includes all the elements of wordpress...it might not be recommended, lol, but I've done a few like that because I got rocks in my head and it seemed easier. All you would need then is the index.php and the style.css...here's some good easy tutorials though:
http://mattread.com/archives/2005/04...ss-is-not-php/
This article was the first step in getting me to understand it.
http://www.urbangiraffe.com/themes/guides
This is a complete tutorial if you want to build a blog from the ground up.
I just built a "custom" template for an erotic story blog I'm writing. I basically copied the default blog, made changes to the header, footer, and style sheet, and I have a custom look, pretty clean design, and it took me around 30 minutes.