Pliz HELP! – Structuring the pages

Hello friends,

I have just joined the wordpress community! ??

Everythin has been excellent so far, i just had a question which seems basic, but anyway here is my question:

I am thinkin to hav a blog that on the homepage i write my general daily posts, and in addition i want 2 hav 2/3 side menu items one for things like “news”, “images” and so on.
and in those sections i want 2 add items without them apearing on my blog homepage and also i want them in a way that users can also add comments to those.

i first tried to use the page facility but that just offers a static content that no further posts seem to be added to it,

then i tried to use the category facitliy, but then each post i write which i want to be for example for the news section, also appears in my blog homepage!

can anyone provide some guidance what is the best way to achieve this structure using wordpress? your help is much appreciated.

thanks v much in advance,
sunny