cleaning up widget appearance

the missing ul tags might have something to do with it:
https://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fhoopservations.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

you may need to see how the sidebar is registered in functions.php;
if that does not resolve the problem, you could paste the code of your sidebar.php and functions.php file into a https://wordpress.pastebin.com/ each and post the links to them here.

thanks. i’m not quite sure what to look for and edit in these files. please advise.

here’s functions.php: https://wordpress.pastebin.com/X3ajeU74
here’s sidebar.php: https://wordpress.pastebin.com/K1PYbcfp

ok, this was the wrong assumption – i didn’t take the time to look into the html code in the browser.

in the top textwidget, you are using some php code, probably ‘wp_list_pages()’ without wrapping it into ul tags.

try to add these html ul tags to the code and see what changes.

for instance:
<ul><?php wp_list_pages('title_li=&......'); ?></ul>

(unfortunately, display errors in IE are more difficult to check, as the IE does not have analytical tools as firefox has.)

thanks. putting the ul’s around it worked!