Welcome and good luck. Try finding a good book on general opening principles and look to get some play with those in the 1000 to 1200 rating level. Stick with it and you will improve. Remember, it has been said that one must lose 1000 games before you become a chess player.
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Perhaps a good place to start is going through this: http://www.chesskid.com/article/view/chesskidcoms-curriculum
It is written for kids, but the information inside is the same that everyone needs when they start playing chess.
You should also watch these:
1.http://www.chess.com/video/player/everything-you-need-to-know-the-opening
2.http://www.chess.com/video/player/everything-you-need-to-know-tactics--strategy
3.http://www.chess.com/video/player/everything-you-need-to-know-the-endgame
4.http://www.chess.com/video/player/everything-you-need-to-know-bringing-it-together
Watch them in the order they are numbered.
Those are the best resources I can think of for the level you are at. Once you finish those tactics will be your biggest problem and you should practice those. Another thing you should do is play a lot more slow games. You can get slow play from longer live time controls and from the correspondance 3 days per move games.
Don't get discouraged because we all start where you are. Keep at it for a while and you will see lots of improvement.
I have not played in over 35 years and then I wasn't very good due to lack of play. How do I go about playing those in similiar situations. It's tough getting beat in only a few moves.