I've been told that I could/should be more active in the opening, so I did some experimentation in some unrated games.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In this next game, I wasn't sure what to do on turn 13:

These are my best 2 out of the 4 we played.  I lost 4/4 games, but we seemed have got along well and became chess.com friends, so I hope to play another soon.

I guess they're so bad no one wants to touch them... :-p  C'est la vie.

In the first game 7...Qa5+ wins your bishop or knight. 20.R(c)(e)d1 looks decent.

I see the bishop, but not the knight.

I'm no expert at all, but here's what I see. Experimenting with openings at your level might be a good thing. But, that doesn't appear to be the biggest problem.

You stated you lost all 4 games, and the ones you posted were your best. So, did you hang even more pieces in the other games? Make more consecutive moves with the same piece? I think those are the issues you need to deal with before worrying about openings. 30 minutes seems to be enough time to see hangers, or, where you want to move your rook.

BTW, I would have also taken the bishop on move 13.

I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by more consecutive moves with the same piece.  I'd think that sometimes it'd be useful.  Maybe I'll work on that, though.

When you moved the rook to g1 and you stated you meant to move it to h1.

I meant that it was a mistake from being sloppy with the mouse.