Thanks Huey for the excellent feedback. I am not very camera smart, so to be honest I just push the button and hope it turns out ok (which has been difficult with stop motion as I can't move the camera, and if certain objects move in certain spots it makes the focus go crazy). Looking over the clip, I think the flickering might have been the position of my body (I am using artificial light behind me, so I think I need to move out of the way before taking the photo).
We have a remote for the camera (my husband works in the camera industry, so we have lots of stuff which would probably help me) I just don't know how to use it. I might get him to teach me (I will wish him good luck with that).
I am going to start taking more photos than I will need, like you suggest, so I can just remove some to get the timing just right. That seems like a great solution to my timing issues.