a. I'm 17 and I attend a public school, so I don't know a lot about oscillations, firmware, or any of the other foreign words that I've seen in this forum.
b. I'm not stupid, just inexperienced. I'm sure I can do this, It will just take some help.
c. I'm not very financially secure (neither is my family) so I need to do this job very CHEAP! I'd much rather do this and learn something than buy something from a manufacturer and have it crap out on me later down the road.
d. I did not support Bush, and I'm not voting republican. don't bash me because I'm from the southeastern states, I'm very atypical, and not very happy about my location.

Long story short, I need step by step on how to go from ground zero to finished project, and perhaps a list of components I should buy - model numbers from the retailer would ROCK, but I'm american, so american retailers please

oh, and I've never read a schematic, so a tutorial or a link to an easy tutorial would be vastly appreciated. I couldn't find an honest to god newbie page, so I figured I'd request this content, or at least a set of links to it.
thanks, guys
skyler