Thanks for your suggestions but just before going to the hotspot route, my normal connection worked! I am using a wired connection so did not see how the hotspot would work for me but one thing I did which might affect those that are hard wired in and those on wi-fi or using a mobile hotspot if you still have wi-fi turned on, is rebooting your router. I did this because we had a storm roll through and the power flickered 3 or 4 times and seemed like my system was affected so I rebooted the router and right after that I was able to log in with my wired connection! This was after 3 days of not being able to connect so throw a router reboot into the list of things to try.
PS - I have Optimum for my internet provider (using an Altice (?) UBC1340 router) , maybe we need to talk about the different internet services we all have to see if there is anything common in that area.