I've been following everything, watching live interviews. No worries there! The FOMC can't just raise rates based on some date. It has to raise them based on inflation/employment numbers.

You are reading this backwards. The inflation/employment numbers were taken into account and they warned that the economy has sufficiently recovered and a raise was imminent. The date has nothing to do with it. The Fed however did indicate in their comments their line of thinking that if the current trend continues, they would begin raising rates around this timeframe. They did.

When was the last time the Fed raised or lowered the federal funds rate by 5 basis points? And when was the last time they raised or lowered it by 50 or 75 basis points? If you've been following, you'd sooner expect the next increase to be 50 or 75 basis points than 15 let alone 5.