Conditional Formatting - What am I doing wrong?

Maybe my question should be, Is conditional formatting the right way to go?

I've just scratched the surface of Conditional Formatting within Excel. It seems pretty straight forward and all, but I can't figure out why it won't color a row when the value in the cell changes.

We have a column that specifies the quarter of the year our job was shipped on. No problem, I was able to get Excel to change this column to Q1, Q2... based on our invoice date. Now is where it gets confusing for me

So, my yearly quarters are in column A, and will be filled in with the date we invoice our customer. I would like all of row 26 to change to green when the quarter is Q1. I would like all of row 26 to change to yellow when the quarter is Q2. So on and so fourth.

Now, I am by no means an Excel Pro, but this does seem like it's pretty easy to obtain. When I highlight the row I would like changed, select Conditional Formatting>New Rule. I select the "Use a formula to determine which cells to format". In the formula bar, I place =A26=Q1, then I select the formatting I would like, OK out of the dialog box and back to my sheet. I also do the same thing for creating a rule for Q2. If Q1 shows up in Column A, the row should go green, which it does, I'm happy. But as soon as I place a date that's in Q2 of the year, no formatting changes take place, and everything is still green as in the rule for Q1. When the value of the first column changes, no formatting takes place and everything stays as it was with the original value. Also, after the rule changes the background color of the row, once I place data in the cell, the color goes back to white.

Do I have any steps out of order? Or am I going about this all wrong?

Q1 is a cell reference, I'm guessing you are talking about changing a value in a cell somewhere to Q1?
So your format condition is evaluating if the value in Q1 is equal to the value in A26 or something, I think that you want to select the row with A26 active and enter:
=$A$26="Q1"
as your conditional format.

I didn't realize I needed the quotation marks in there. You are both correct and I thank you both for taking the time to reply and help. Everything now works as it should...

I spoke too soon. While the answers you've given me are correct, when I drag the cells down, it will copy the formatting, but it still looks at the original cell (Invoice Date) to look at the formatting for the new row. How do I specify the formatting to look at the new cell in the row I've created? I've attached the book for you to look at....

Thank you so much for helping me out, again! I was going mad. Looks like I'll have to brush up the Excel skills. Have a good holiday!