Is there a plain-English, non-techy, Janet&John guide out there?

Hello,

I've seen a couple of professional (online) presentations of Drupal and now I've downloaded the Acquia desktop package (for Windows 7) - Drupal version 7 - to experiment and learn within the confines of my computer environment.

It installed itself in C:\Users ....... etc. Now, all the fascinating stuff in the presentations - which seemed so splendid at the time - eludes me!

So now I feel really stuck! What do I do with these files? Even if I did know what to do with these downloaded files, I've also downloaded CKEditor, and have no idea how to link this program with Drupal.

If I could link the CKEditor to Drupal - would that make it possible for me to do something with Drupal?

I'm familiar with with HTML from the old days - a bit shaky on CSS but trying to improve - but perhaps this isn't very useful for Drupal anyway? It seems to be more like a visual,relational database - which I don't think exist.

If I could just be pointed to a plain "how to do" guide - flow-chart guides would be helpful if such things exist to steer newbies through the Drupal maze.

Just to know how to assemble the bits and pieces - and to know if I have all the necessary bits and pieces in the first place - and to get them working together - so I can actually explore and learn by doing.

I feel like I've been given almost - but not all - of the parts to assemble an IKEA piece of furniture - but have no tools to build it with - and no picture of what the piece of furniture should actually look like when it's been built and ready to use!

I must seem like a dimwit - sorry :-(

Ivy