Wordpress Themes - WP Forum at BFA - Help Please main content issue not aligning right :(

I am very new to wordpress, and have been trying to fix one issue after another and i know its my lack of real understanding for how things work with the wordpress/php modular design. I would appreciate any help. the problem is that my blog posts when run locally with wamp are aligning too high and to the left. I have tried to change margins and padding and nothing seems to move them, and i am sure i am not adjusting the correct css property, but I just honestly can not seem to figure it out. I was reverse engineering from a tutorial and altered some things as I went along. I want my page background to be two-fold a solid background color and a large top-centered image above the header. The navigation is too low now, but I know how to adjust that. It seems almost like there is a large margin underneath the header and i am not sure where it is. i know its something im overlooking or possibly the z-index?? I would appreciate any help at all, but please be gentle lol. Here is a pastebin link for all of my code. Thanks for helping a gal out :D

http://wordpress.pastebin.com/2egj4PZx