filling a text outline with more text

Of course, I'm sorry, it's the first time I've ever tried a forum... crazy unbelievable I know, but true!

Ok, so I've tried to recreate what I did in two different ways but can't get it right again!

I type home. Then create outlines, but then when I go to object paths, both the make compound path and release compound paths are greyed out. It doesn't matter which box I select or which tool I use to select it, I can't release the compound path. STUCK!

So then I wrote each of the letters separately, lined them up and converted them to text. I then get the two boxes on the outline of each one, which in theory means I should be able to link them, however that doesn't seem to work either.

When I managed it first time it's because I was somehow able to release the compound paths. I then  simply used the direct selection tool to thread the frames together and voila I was there! There's a box on the left and right of each text frame. In theory you can simply click on the right box of the H and the left box on the O and they are then threaded.... for some reason I can't even do that today!

I will keep playing with it and see if I can come up with a fix. I've read some of the adobe supports on it and can't see what I'm doing differently.