Hi Mary, thanks for your reply. I did figure out what the issue was. On MoodleCloud I was in the "admin" course that they begin you with (which I know I gave myself a unique login so I'm not sure how it became "admin" as my login username too, but I finally got logged in) and then MoodleCloud also put me in a course called "admin" to learn how to use it. The double "admins" didn't make sense to me when I was supposed to have a unique username, but the class named "admin" made sense.
At that point, I was "in" the course mode (of the free admin class) and to me it looked like I was stuck in this "admin" course and couldn't get in to actually create my own courses or do any specific changes to the site. Somehow I figured out how to get out of the admin course, turn on editing, and add a new course. From there, I've been able to add courses and start to build them with videos and resources. I also saw how to change my username from admin back to the unique username I had originally created.
I'm still not sure why I wasn't getting an email to reset my password, but it doesn't matter now.
Thanks so much for your reply! This will probably help new users as well. Also, is there a better forum specifically for MoodleCloud? I made sure to be in an appropriate topical thread, but everything I read took me back to moodle for the community forums to get help.