Here are some good resources. I’m just getting into wordpress myself, started in September.
These are GREAT websites to browse for tutorials
https://www.wpcandy.com
https://www.wprecipes.com
A beginners E-Book for you
W3 Mag – Essential WordPress tutorials for Beginners
Something I also highly sugget would be to get an account @ https://www.lynda.com. It’s $25/month or $37.50 (I believe) for the month including exercise files and go to the “WordPress 3: Creating and Editing Custom Themes” course. This has been a valuable source of information for myself in learning wordpress. You follow the whole course and in under 5 hrs you will know how to make an awesome wordpress website. They give you step by step directions as to what you need to do, learn and what happens next.
Some of these tips you can use now and some you can use when you know a bit more.
18 Ways to Speed up Theme Development
Google is also your best friend.
Hope this helps.
