I’m about 2 hours ahead of you on the same learning curve.
If you install Postie, that will allow you to send email with formatting and images (among other things) to be posted on your blog. Be sure to read the README file when you download Postie for how to get Postie setup.
I just set mine up this morning.
After you set all the settings under Options->Writing, you need to go to http://<yourblogaddress>/wp-mail.php and that will run the POP client to suck your email in.
Read http://codex.wordpress.org/Blog_by_Email for more information
