I do believe I found the problem - tho it is rather odd to say the least - IMO

I was trying to think of what I was doing the day prior to this all happening, and the only thing I did different, was to change the wallpaper to a winter Christmas scene. I've had it in a file for several years when I saved it from an email, and I've used it every Christmas season with no issues. Another odd thing I noticed after I made the change, is that when I would shut down, the previous wallpaper that I had been using, would appear for several seconds before the usual "Windows is saving your settings" etc would come up. So this morning I changed the wallpaper back to what I previously had up, and now no more blue/underlined words, and no more hidden wallpapers popping up when I log off.

Any ideas on this - anyone?????