I got into computers in the late 70s, the 'computer revolution'. In those days, the only reason you wanted your own computer was to learn programming. In fact they weren't good for much else. 8^)
Computers in those days, the Apple II, the TRS 80, even the first IBM PC, came with programming languages installed in them and books to teach you programming, or at least get you started. Every computer owner was a hobbyist who was learning programming. It was fascinating, I thought. I was largely self taught, though I did take a few classes later.
So I'll tell you how I would do it.
First of all, forget C. C is not that easy to understand for a beginner. In the jr. college where I took my classes, they wouldn't even let you learn C as a first language. You'd take BASIC (which stands for Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) or Pascal. Pascal had a lot more features, but modern BASICS (like Visual BASIC) has all those features. You can download the Python language for free, and that is also a language meant for learning. There is also a free language loosely modeled on Visual BASIC called Gambas (google it).
When you learn programming, you're learning two different things. One is how to analyze a problem, to break it down into steps that you can explain to a computer--that's programming. The other is the actual language. So if you learn an 'easy' language, you can concentrate on learning programming, and the skills you learn will transfer to another language. Then you can learn C and learn about indirection and dynamic dimensioning and all that weird stuff. Then you can learn C++ land learn about objects and properties and methods. To learn all that together is just really confusing.
Secondly, Windows just complicates everything. When you write in Windows you're not writing a program from beginning to end. The program is more like a form you fill out. Here's a button, and here's what happens when you press this button. The learning curve is steeper. It certainly doesn't mean you can't do it, but you do it differently.
So get a computer, get a language, then go down to Barnes and Nobel and look at books on this language (Python or Visual BASIC). Some books are for experts, some are for children, but find one that seems to talk to -you-. It should have chapters that start from scratch and explain one thing at a time--i.e. a tutorial, not a manual that simply catalogs all the features of the language. (You'll need that too but later.)
Go through the book one chapter at a time. Do the experiments on the computer--that's very important. Play with the features as you learn them. If you have questions, there are lots of places to go. Find forums on the Internet, or even come back to Yahoo Answers.
Now everyone's different. Some of us do better with a class, some of us do better on our own with a book. I found programming classes in college to be frustratingly slow. I could do better on my own. Until I learned C, and then there were just too many new concepts in the book that I couldn't understand so a class helped there.
Once I got into programming I found it downright addicting. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! 8^)