I would really like to be able to work on some scripting and magic effects while she's busy tonight. Is there any way to force the Creation Kit to open? Temporary deleting textures and models if necessary?

Would you mind to explain a bit more what's happening?

The CK is more resource consumptive than the game itself as it has to load much more info at any given time. Scripting, you can surely do with N++ or Sublime Text. Still, you might be able to work with masterless plugins...

Specs?

It tells me I don't have enough memory when loaded from Steam, and will not open the program. 1 GB Ram, unsure of other specs.

I've seen upwards of 2GB when running the Creation Kit. I think the 1GB memory is your problem.

Yeah, the Creation Kit is a huge memory hog, so 1Gb just isn't enough. You'll need at least twice that.