organizing posts on homepage

to be clear, i am referring to the area where i have posts on the main page, under the photoslider.

one more q – sorry. i would also love to be able to add the date underneath the titles of the titles of the posts like these sites do:

any ideas how i can add that in twenty twelve? could i add box frames around the posts and titles like these two sites have, or no?

https://theblondeabroad.com/
https://theblondeabroad.com/

any takers? i looked at this site: https://www.leeabbamonte.com/ (whose link i meant to share up above) and it looks like his second column is a widget. That puzzled me — but, is that how I do it? Or is there a way to create a loop directly in the code of the index file and will call forth whichever posts she chooses for the favorites column? I’d love to do it with code if I can.

i feel like this is the right start, except it still doesn’t address putting the posts in two columns. still, the code doesn’t even work. if anyone smarter than i am could help, i’d appreciate it.

<?php
/**
 * The main template file.
 *
 * This is the most generic template file in a WordPress theme
 * and one of the two required files for a theme (the other being style.css).
 * It is used to display a page when nothing more specific matches a query.
 * For example, it puts together the home page when no home.php file exists.
 *
 * Learn more: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Template_Hierarchy
 *
 * @package WordPress
 * @subpackage Twenty_Twelve
 * @since Twenty Twelve 1.0
 */

get_header(); ?>

<?php ?>
	<div id="primary" class="site-content">
		<div id="content" role="main">

        <div style="margin-bottom: 20px;">

        </div>

		  <?php $my_query = new WP_Query('category_name=FAVORITES&posts_per_page=7');
  while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post();
  $do_not_duplicate[] = $post->ID ?>
    <!-- Do stuff... -->
  <?php endwhile; ?>
    <!-- Do other stuff... -->
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
 if (in_array($post->ID, $do_not_duplicate)) continue;
 ?>
 <?php twentytwelve_content_nav( 'nav-below' ); ?>

			<article id="post-0" class="post no-results not-found">

			<?php if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) ) :
				// Show a different message to a logged-in user who can add posts.
			?>
				<header class="entry-header">
					<h1 class="entry-title"><?php _e( 'No posts to display', 'twentytwelve' ); ?></h1>
				</header>

				<div class="entry-content">
					<p><?php printf( __( 'Ready to publish your first post? <a href="%s">Get started here</a>.', 'twentytwelve' ), admin_url( 'post-new.php' ) ); ?></p>
				</div><!-- .entry-content -->

			<?php else :
				// Show the default message to everyone else.
			?>
				<header class="entry-header">
					<h1 class="entry-title"><?php _e( 'Nothing Found', 'twentytwelve' ); ?></h1>			</header>

				<div class="entry-content">
					<p><?php _e( 'Apologies, but no results were found. Perhaps searching will help find a related post.', 'twentytwelve' ); ?></p>
					<?php get_search_form(); ?>
				</div><!-- .entry-content -->
			<?php endif; // end current_user_can() check ?>

			</article><!-- #post-0 -->

		</div><!-- #content -->
	</div><!-- #primary -->

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Try here:

https://www.transformationpowertools.com/wordpress/posts-in-two-columns-twenty-twelve

while some of that code is helpful (i found it about a month ago. the blog author is very smart.) it does not help in this instance because once i get to the issue of needing two loops in order to separate the featured versus recent posts, it’s not enough information. i read all about loops on codex, and i almost understand how to create the two loops as you can see above, but i still can’t get the code from that to work — always get an error at the last line of code. once i do create the two loops, i’ll still need more than the powertools site has. i actually posted a q to that blog directly a few days ago. thanks — seems like we are at least looking in the same directions