Hey @brendanmcpherson - Hey there...like you, I am new to this as well so I'll give you dummy down version of what to do here...and hopefully a few old timers (whales) come and chime in if I've missed anything.

Steps:
Go to your wallet
Click on the little arrow pointing down next to SBD (steem dollars)
Click on Market
You're going to want to use the fields on the left hand side under 'buy' to purchase your Steem
In Steem field, enter the amount that you want to buy (which will be at the rate of the field above)
You will then see what the cost will be for you to buy that amount of Steem calculated into SBD (make sure you have enough Steem Dollars)
Click Buy Steem

One your order has been placed, scroll down to open orders and see if your order is there, if it's not, you either sold the SBD OR forgot to hit Buy Steem

Assuming the SBD sold, you will then click back into your wallet
You'll now see values in the Steem column
Click the arrow to the right of that value
Select power up
Enter the amount of steem you want to convert to Steem power
then click power up

If you do all of this...you'll be winning.

Good luck...hopefully this was helpful, sir.

-JackThaR1ppir