I'd use Dreamhost for buying and handling your domain names. They offer private WHOIS for free. I'm migrating the remainder of my GoDaddy domains to them as we

I'd use Dreamhost for buying and handling your domain names. They offer private WHOIS for free. I'm migrating the remainder of my GoDaddy domains to them as we speak. They've been handling my domain names for 6 months and I'm happy at this point. They also handle hosting (which I've used in the past) and would suit your purposes pretty well. I'd recommend them to my mom. (If you'd like to use my referral code, I'd help pay for my hosting.) - Don't worry about getting anything too big or too small. You don't need to lock down hosting for longer than a month at a time. Hosting is cheap so even if a web host is disappointing, you aren't typically out so much. If you want, consider an all-in-one solution with publishing functionality. Something like http://squarespace.com http://squarespace.com. I haven't used them (but mainly because I'm not their target customer). I think you would do well with them and can put something together that's really professional looking.