Tom,
Always glad to help out. Let’s see if we can’t get things going in the right direction.
Basically everything on the web is broken up into boxes. Sometimes the boxes are obvious due to background colors or borders. Sometimes you can’t see the edges of the box, but it’s still there.
On the Authentic Theme, the home page is broken up into two main boxes: the top (with the slideshow and top sidebar) and the bottom (where the contact and podcasting widgets are in the demo).
The top box is designed to fit a certain height roughly equal to the height of the slideshow images. It can stretch beyond that, but that will simply push the bottom box further down creating more space between the slideshow and the lower widgets than you’d see in the demo.
In order to place a text widget below the home page slideshow, you’ll need to make sure that the widgets in the home top don’t take up more vertical space than the slideshow. That will let everything line up correctly.
If you find you’re still having trouble getting things lined up, let me know. Also send over a link and I’ll be happy to take a closer look.
Thanks,
Bill