Hi Michelle, a viewfinder with crosshairs is the go and shouldn't be too hard to find, ebay perhaps?. My red dot finder is loose as well and I don't see any way of overcoming this problem. Like you I'm a beginner, well restarting after quite a few years away from a telescope. I came across quite a good program called "Stellarium" for getting an idea of where things are and where to look.
http://www.stellarium.org/ It's easy to use and you can see exactly whats up there at any given time.
Hope this helps you a bit.
Cheers,
Ray