Mostever- in your administration side of the program, click on Site Administration. you will see all of the original info you used to set up the site. under this will be some check boxes. uncheck the simple cache and the page file cache. Your site will run a little slower but things will happen just by refreshing the page. Leave this off while you are under developement.  The css file can be edited just like regular css, just make sure you save it as .php. The file for the site is located at yoursite/views/default/css.php.

IF you install different widgets, some of them have there own css file and you will have to edit it to match your site also.. Or you could just plug in a theme form here and presto you are done. IF you do that your site look will not be effected by future upgrades.  

Thank you for you assistance. I don't like to figure these types of problems out so I used a software program to install the site automatically. It installed everything correctly, but unfortunately I must now get myself familiar with all the files.

I will continue to play around. I am still disapointed in the overall progress of the site. After 5 years of development you would think that the elgg site would be better than what it is. I don't know php so I guess it must be more difficult then I was told.

the site is a little messy, but everything is here. Make sure and check out the themes and plugins in the drop down top tools menu. most of them have a readme file that will help you install and use them.   Also Find a member named Fusion and follow him. He is the god on this site.