Ugh! I'm so ready to get a new (animated

) avatar up, with BOTH my precious doggies. And I'm DETERMINED to learn how to do it myself!
Villette NICELY sent me the program she has, and BabyFidgette gave me a little advice, but I'm still having trouble. I hope someone can give me some advice on getting it down to size!!!!
Here's the deal:
I'm not a donating member. I have two pictures (shrunk to proper 75x75 pixels), and two animated name frames....just a solid color background with the name moving into it, then stopping.
I've tried several different methods of getting the file down to size, but it's like 34KB, and it's supposed to be 19.5...something like that?
What am I doing wrong? BabyFidgette sd. that she THOUGHT I ought to be able to have some animation and keep it under the limit.
I've run the "optimization wizard", but don't know how to set the options. Should color be at 256?
What about "dither value"? (which I know nothing about!!!) It's at 100% right now.
Any other advice you can give me would be appreciated!