If your email name is easy to "guess" you can get hit at any time by a spam bot that mass mails names like (Tim1, Tim2, Tim3, Tim4, ... Tim91) BINGO! Your now on a spam list and it will be passed around and your daily spam will grow and grow and grow...
Couple of things you can do, I use the live mail client with a third party email server (not microsoft live) and they have spam filtering on their site that you can turn on. I'm sure microsoft live mail has the same (though you have to go to the web site to set it up).
Another thing is (if my first guess was right) dump that email address as it is now compromised, and come up with a name that is much harder to dictionary attack.
Sadly, it won;t stop there. If you give your email address out to ANY web business. It will most certainly be sold to a spammer sooner or later. I use multiple email accounts. One dedicated to using to give out to businesses that require an email address. It is the WORST hit address I have. Every now and then I dump that and start a new one.
In reality, email is quickly becoming completely useless

If you really just want to use it for family and friends, come up with a name that is hard to dictionary attack but recognisable to friends (or atleast warn them ). Then never give it out to any buisness or website on the net /evar/.