Enthusiast III
I also have a Canon T1i that carries my all-in-one lens, the Canon 18 - 200 MM "Kit" lens with image stabilization. This is a fairly reasonable priced lens that allows you to go from moderately wide angle to a moderate tele-zoom. Of course it's not of the image quality as the high end lenses, but it takes nice pictures. I would encourage you to just keep takin pics. Compare the ones you like to the ones you don't. Try to figure out what you did different. Stick with it and over time you get better. :-)I have a Canon T1i that I use from time to time, but it's becoming rarer that I take it on a trip with me. Worrying about dirt, the bulkiness of the bag, and my lack of any real skill keeps me from using it as much as I'd like too. Maybe one day I'll figure it out.
I mostly use my Nexus 5x for pictures, it has a pretty good camera built in and works for most situations.