Hi Ssdm1, welcome to our side of the forum!
The best tarot deck to learn from is the Rider Waite ( the fools journey) and if you don't have that deck, Most tarot decks are illustrated and centered around rider waite anyways, but its good to understand it. A good resource is ' The Tarot Lady', she goes card by card on the meaning. I learned a lot using the book, ' The Holistic Tarot'.
My best advice, keep it as simple as possible! It's a highly subjective entertainment activity. Try not to let it mess with your conscious or get you 'down', if so, thats probably an indication to put the cards away and rest your mind.
A very simple technique; do the 1 card pull a day. "what do I need to know today" Or 'What is my energy for the day", " what is my lesson for the day'. A lot of us updates on the 'Your card of the day' thread here. So that is one simple technique.
Again, keep the questions as simple as possible when you starting out. When your a little more comfortable, move on to the larger spreads. Below are two very simple spreads. There are tons online I am sure. We don't use specifics. Sometimes you just got to wing it and trust your intuition. A lot of us go beyond the literal meaning of the cards, we use visions or energy feels ..
