After some frustration with what I thought were setting issues, Lee B helped me out and it turns out my dual 1/8th inch plug headset wasn't going to work for this. I went to the local Radio Shack and ended up with a Logitec 250 USB headset, and things went MUCH smoother! I figured I'd post the settings here that worked, since they are a little different from Lee's screencast since she's using other software.
(Using a Logitec 250 USB headset)
System prefs : Sound : output and input set to Logitec USB
Thanks for the feedback on the original posted intro. This one is the same content, but I re-exported at a 64KB bitrate. Thanks to those of you who listened, and I hope that others find it interesting!
I am feeling little challenged - something that I am sure will be a consistent phenomena for the next 6 weeks. Learning the concept in "windowspeak" and then translating to "macspeak is a bit of a learning curve. I found the method to set a bit rate of 64 for the Mac version of Audacity is established in Audacity preferences> File Format> MP3 Export Setup then the drop down menu> 64.
If I have posted this entry twice - it maybe the beginning of that head knocking thing I heard about.