I thought I would share my experience in how I learned VBA macros within Excel (mainly) and Access.
I needed to automate a lot of tasks in Excel and I knew all about recording macros. You can record macros from the Tools|Macros menu in Excel 2003 (I'm not sure what it is in 2007/2010).
Then I decided I needed to alter them slightly, so I thought I'd have a look at the recorded code. Pressing Alt-F11 brings you into the VBA Integrated Development Environment (IDE). You can then look at the macros you have recorded and see what they do.
I would then edit them slightly and see what happened. If I needed to do somthing and I wasn't sure how, I would search the help or google and find excellent answers all over the web.
I now work as a VBA developer and I often still have things that I need to find out. Having a strong background in computers and Office applications (especially Excel) will help. Having a husband that does Perl will mean you can ask him about general programming things like syntax and variables and programming concepts that might need some extra explaining. I had been programming before on and off so these concepts weren't new to me.
Good luck and remember to ask heaps of questions on Stack Overflow and you'll be a Pro in no time.
