Welcome to Steemit! It sounds like you guys have had a rough time but are staying positive.  That's a great! (Staying positive, not having a hard time) haha I'm very interested in homesteading, so I look forward to seeing what you have to share in the future.

In addition to being a residential security expert, I'm also a private investigator.  People watching is a passion of mine.  One of the things I do is look through intro posts for new accounts that show promise.  Yours does!

There are a ton of other webpages to help you with Steemit.  Here are some of the best for beginners:

https://steemd.com/  (This site is used to keep track of your voting power and other stats.  You do not want to run out of voting power, and you only get so much per day.  I keep my voting power around 80% for example.)

https://steem.makerwannabe.com/  (This site will tell you who follows you, who unfollows you, and who mutes you.  It is great for meeting new people too.  I regularly check it to see who has followed me to see if I should follow them back.)

https://steemit.chat/  (This site is the official chat webpage for Steemit.  There are Discord channels too, but I usually stick to the official site.  Come in to network and meet new friends.  You can directly message people there too, so it makes it easier to communicate with your closest friends.)

Oh yeah, there are a lot of bots on here.  If you see a cookie cutter reply, especially to your intro post, it is almost certainly a bot.  Check the account's reputation.  If it is low, I would recommend just ignoring them.  Everything is public on Steemit, so you can go look at an account's comments and replies.  Are they all the same? It's a bot.

Adding photos to your account as a new Steemian may be confusing at first too.  The easiest way it to click to "Submit a Story."  Once in there, use the built in Steemit tool to upload an image from your computer.  Below the posting window, you will see "Insert images by dragging & dropping, pasting from the clipboard, or by selecting them." Click on the blue text.  Once the image is uploaded, you can copy and paste the link into your account settings.  

Again, welcome, and I've followed you!  If you have any questions about getting started, look me up on the chat site.