The past few days have been lackluster, so here's an overview.
On the large land mass to the left of my island, there's some flat space. I figured I would go over there and clear out some trees to start my settlement. I actually began the corner of a building before I realized I had hardly planned out what I was going to do and stopped.
The next time I logged on, I got lost again but eventually made it to my house. I stocked up on pickaxes and shovels, and started digging downward in a stair formation. Usually I would end up in a cave eventually but this time I made it to about the 4th layer, since I ran into bedrocks. I had read a thread about smart locations to mine for materials, like diamond, and went up to what I estimated as the 12th layer and began an extremely long strip mine. I ran into plenty of caves that time which I explored. I've started a new rule for myself: torches will be put on the right-hand wall of any cavern I explore. My sense of direction stinks in this game. Anyway, I kept the mine going for a very long distance... it's somewhere around 500 blocks long. Only when the diamond pickaxe I made during the mining expedition got used up did I return home, with almost 100 iron ore and a new total of 24 diamond collected.
I also realized that I stink at designing stuff. I have a Classic singleplayer level floating on my hard drive which I use to sort of free hand stuff. I tried making a house, and it was really blocky. I can't seem to think in terms that aren't cubical. x.x Must go on YouTube and the forums to get inspirations, perhaps borrow designs.