Well...you could use...MS Paint, if you want something free (and that's not a trial). But the stuff you can make with it does not compare to PSP or Photoshop.
If you found PSP hard, I don't advise you to try Adobe Photoshop. But if you just keep on fiddling with all the options on PSP, you'll get the hang of it. Because it's not worth downloading some uber crap program and producing equally crappy work, so I really suggest you hang on to PSP and work with it a little.
You could always go to
www.download.com and check out what sorts of things they have, but beware, a LOT of them are crap.
BTW, your signature is REALLY long. Try cropping off all that empty white space, k? EDIT: never mind =)