Playing with page layout

Like most bloggers, I probably look at my blog at least once a day. Either checking to see how things fall on the page with new posts, using it as a starting point to check out other's blogs, etc.
After a while, it starts to look... well, boring. So I am trying out some new things. Little things - I have no intention of doing a major overhall here. I don't know much about hmtl or style sheets, so getting it to this point took a lot of research, and trial and error.
For the time being, I've added a background image to the post column and the sidebar.

Let me know if you like it or if you think this is too busy or distracting. I tried to make it subtle, but I've learned that different monitors (as well as individual users settings) can dramatically alter it.