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ballin baby

i am looking to "invest" but have no idea what to do. i'd like to buy my own home/condo/townhouse within the next 9 months or so. i should probably look into an IRA, whatever that is. right now i have some dough in CD's, some in money market bank account.

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I keep a few thou in a regular bank checking/savings account for monthly bills and expenses, a larger chunk is in ING gaining 4.5% or whatever, the rest is invested. (I got lucky, my best friend's dad is a big investment guy, he basically did all my investing, just told me 4-6 funds to pick up and then just to not touch it for as long as possible) Whenever I can invest money I ask him how to distribute it based on my current portfolio. ING also has a few different funds that they weight differently depending on your goals, for [censored] and giggles I decided to invest in their long term high risk fund (they suggest doing this if you will not need the $ for the next 10 years min.) which was a collection of sci/tech, emerging markets, some other stuff...

I guess I just lucked out but you can also do a ton of reading/research on the internet, I follow a few blogs and read some sites here and there, but basically I like to just buy something and then not worry/trade for as long as possible, I check it every now and then, but I'm not really concerned with it. I have no interest in trading daily/weekly, I just want to buy something and then every few years make a few adjustments... really depends on your goals/if you need the $. The money I have invested is money that I don't really consider in day to day life. I just want it to grow as much as possible for as long as possible.

edit: I'm slowly starting to get more interested in it so I've bought a few books and plan on reading, but again, not with the intentions of being an active trader.