Hi Karen and Welcome!!
I have good news for you, there are answers to your questions!
For the acronyms, if you go the HOME page and look down in the left hand corner you click on a link that explains all of them.
And, if you go to the top of the page in the orange strip and click on "resources" you can then click on any of those techniques and it will give you step by step instructions.
Please post back if you have any more questions! Its a huge site and I'm still finding cool stuff!
PS: DH is darling husband, DS is darling son, etc.