Hi Teapot and welcome to LWL! Yep, sounds like you've been bitten by the
bug too, so you're in the right place!
I feel in love with weights from Day One -- I remember lying in bed the night after I tried them out for the first time and being so excited that I couldn't sleep.
Like you (and many people) I started on machines and gradually moved to free weights. Now it's probably about 80% free weights and 20% machines, but there are some great machines that I'll always use (lat pulldowns, assisted pullups, the Hammer strength machines, rear delts etc).
I had a personal trainer and I'm very glad that I did because he was a stickler for proper form. Using the right form can keep you from getting hurt and will get you tons more out of a workout than doing it wrong (with great weight and massive grunts and groans -- like too many of the guys in our weight room!
) If you can afford it, I think a trainer would be well worth your while.
There also are (at least) two exercise web sites that have little video clips of exercises and I referred back to them frequently in the beginning to be sure I was doing exercises correctly:
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html and
http://www.fitsite.com/anatomy.cfm.
Be sure to join us on our weekly thread and let us know how it's going for you!