To be honest the best way to learn is trial and error. I have 9 blogs now, well between myself and my husband.. I found the best thing to do was run a test blog and your real blog alongside each other. If you want to try a plugin or make a change then try it on your test blog first.
The php I have very basic knowledge of and that is only because on the test blog I used to cut and paste chunks of code around seeing what would happen. Before I started I used to copy the code into notepad so if I made a real pigs ear of it I could just paste the code back into place.
Grandmascrotum your blog (assuming it is msnaughty/blog) looks great and I would exchange links with you tomorrow, are you sure you are not worrying too much? The blog is full of great content and lots of text.
I would personally install the google sitemap generator and the no-ping-wait pluging, my hubby has them for download at
http://www.hardrated.com/wordpress/?page_id=5
A quick tip, you have lots of RSS feed buttons, have you remembered to add each of them to your own reader? For example, set up your own MyYahoo page and when logged in, click your 'Add me to Yahoo' button on your blog. Then each time you access your MyYahoo page it should check to see if there have been any updates on your blog.
Walrus - Time permitting, what about a working weekly article from the basics down. Get a blog, what plugins you use, your first post editing blogroll etc? Actually, now I have wrote that I am thinking it could be a lot of work and very time consuming lol...