Help! My email keeps getting hacked!

Email hackers are ruining my life!  Ok, so that's a bit over-dramatic, but I'm so frustrated with hackers hijacking my email account that I could scream!

Over the past three weeks, I have had to change my email password for both my primary email and my "junk" email twice now.

While you would think that changing a simple email password wouldn't be a big deal, well, as I see it, it's a three step process which creates unnecssary stress and a great deal of time that I just don't have.

Both times I had to:

1. Access my internet provider account and go through a series of security verifications and changes to make the new email password - I'm sorry but I don't remember what my first concert was or who my favorite elementary teacher was back then.  That WAS a few years ago.  And... I don't have a favorite SINGLE restaurant.  I like a lot of them.  So, not only do I have to come up with my favorite..now I have to remember that it IS my favorite.
2. Come up with a new password  - Now you wouldn't think that THIS would be a big deal.  But it is.  I not only need to come up with a creative password that meets the requirement of "strength of password" but I also need to remember this "creative" password to be able to access my email...which I do daily..if not hourly.  So something like K39Dd7H3jP is NOT very practical, but hey, it meets the strength requirement.
3. Change my cell phone settings - UGH!  The stress just mounts.  Since I access my email accounts on my cell phone, now I get to reset all those settings on my phone too

The bottom line is I need to figure out what I'm doing (or my lovely husband) to allow hackers to have access to my email account.  Until I figure that out, I see no end to this stress!  Other than one of us clicking on a link in a bogus email, does anyone know how else a hacker can access my account and how I can avoid this craziness? 

Technical info: My computer is behind a password protected router and I have AVG anti-virus protection software that I update once a day and run whole scans on my computer once a week.  I also run Search and Destroy about once a month.  Am I missing something??