Edit Home Page

[Lionheart]

Thanks for a great theme! All of my pages will be static. I tried to remove those elements that I don't need by looking through the forums. I added the Featured Content Gallery and it is showing up on the home page -- which is perfect..But how do I edit the home page to be able to add more free flowing text and graphics? It does not show up in WP as a "page" that I can edit?

Do I have to go into the index.php code to make changes to the home page? I tried to create a 'Home" page so I could edit, but 2 home pages showed up in the navigation menu!

I "got rid" of the right side and bottom menus by plugging in some text box. But I still want to add more graphics and text to the first page other than the pictures in the gallery. The text boxes are a bit constraining (fixed width) for what I'm trying to do..

Also, how do I remove the recent posts from the bottom of the home page (under my Gallery)? I went to the settings and put "0" for the number of posts displayed...but it's still showing up.

Thanks for all your support!