HELP!  Changed shortname of home folder on Mtn. Lion and now everything is "gone"

Hello all,
Last night I was trying to boot up a brand new MacBook Pro using the latest update from my external drive used for Time Machine backups.  It worked great... and then I decided to follow Apple's instructions on changing the shortname (via using a command on Terminal) of my user account because I got married 6 months ago and wanted to change my name.  Now, unfortunately when I sign in on either the new administrative account I had to create to do that OR the original account, I can't access any of my files.  So then I attempted to restore the new computer from my Time Machine backup again to just wipe it clean and redo it.  However, my Time Machine now says my latest back up is 8 days old and it won't find the backup I just did from my OLD MacBook last night prior to trying to boot the new computer from it.  I didn't want to try to figure out what was missing, so I decided to use Migration Assistant over WiFi instead, but that is going to take an additional 7 1/2 hours even from letting it run for the last 7 hours last night.
SO... is there any way to stop Migration Assistant and just FIND the files that are "hiding" from me since I changed the shortname and now can't find my files?  AND, if I continue with Migration Assistant, is it going to create duplicates of all my files?
UGH... HELP!!!! 
-Katie

Well... I fixed it by using Migration Assistant over WiFi (which took oh, 14 hours or so).  Once my computer had received all the data from the old one (for the second time), I was able to locate the home folder I renamed and delete all of that data so it wasn't clogging up my computer.  Was I thrilled to wait nearly 24 hours after receiving my brand new computer to use it?  No.  But, at least it all works.

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