Best Electronics and Robotics Resources for a Novice
I have the same background as you, and one of the first things I bought was an EasyPIC5 pic microcontroller development board. It allows you to play around with pics without having to know too much about the electronics side.

When you want to build a circuit using your newly programmed pic, you can start by prototyping it on a breadboard... and then move on to soldering it on to stripboard.

You can get lots of circuit schematic ideas by searching on Google images.