@Ben,
Thank you for your offer. The Brasil 2014 site is exactly how I would like mine to appear. I was using a different template and had laid out all my posts in it before switching to twenty fourteen. I assumed that process eliminated the featured content layout, but maybe not.

I took all my content out of the theme and attempted to start from"scratch" but that did not help either! Right now rosemarywrites.com is set to private and relatively empty. I'm new at this and struggling to learn about css and codes etc, but I'd rather be writing content. I've looked at many webinars and help pages and did learn a few things but featured content still eludes.