Twenty Fourteen – Posts not showing up on home page

I installed Twenty Fourteen and an initial problem with the grid feature not working where the images were not showing up above the post. The slider function worked fine and there the image and post showed.

I researched and found I needed to click on ‘Visibility’ and turn on the sticky post feature and I did that and changed from slider to grid. The grid now shows up; however, the post itself is now missing and I’m getting a message on the home page saying “nothing is found” and “ready to publish? go here.”

But if I click on the image in the grid above it takes me to the full post.

After researching and not finding anything I went back and tried to revert back to the slider because the post was showing on the home page at that time but now that doesn’t work and I get the same message as above stating that there aren’t any posts.

I even tried creating a second post replicating the first to see if it was a bug with the initial post but it wasn’t and I had the same problem so I deleted the second post.

I’ve spent three hours on this and I can’t find a solution. Can anyone help me and tell me what to do to get the posts back on the home page and keep the grid?

These appears to be a nice theme for what I want to do. I’ve been using Headway for several years but wanted a change for this new site but maybe there are too many buts?

Anyway, please help. The site is https://www.exploringtexastrails.com

Thanks!