Yes I do have restore points and that was going to be my next try at fixing the problem Doc, that is unless I decide to just uninstall Works and install Libre Office. Giving it some serious thought as Libre Office is small (mb size) vs Works.
Given that all you want do do is grocery lists, I'm still at a loss as to why Notepad isn't enough.
Microsoft has abandoned all serious efforts at publishing thorough, well-edited Help content, but they still toss out sloppy blurbs like "Open Notepad by clicking the Start button. In the search box, type Notepad, and then, in the list of results, click Notepad." (If there's still a Run command, you can click it, type notepad.exe in the Open box, and press ENTER.)
Not sure what the default file associations are for Win7 or on your rig, but you can always change them so that any .txt file you create will open in Notepad.
p.s. If you wanted to do your lists with some basic formatting, Win7 apparently also includes WordPad to work with .rtf files instead of plain text.