Love the story & I can definitely help you build a nice looking blog in WordPress. My name is Mat & I've been building websites for the best part of 10 years. I don't usually do projects at this price however like you, I'm currently broke, 26 days sober & desperately need the money. It's funny, this time last year I sold my company for 6 figures and now I have nothing in my bank account; how times change.
But anyway, I can help you out with everything. Whether it's purchasing a domain, figuring out web hosting, guiding you through how to publish your blog posts, I'm here to help. Like you, I think WordPress is the best solution. The administration panel is extremely powerful and you'll be able to manage everything at the click of a button. I work weekends, I'm online pretty much 24x7 and can get started right away. Let's get this thing going!
Talk soon.
Mat