Somewhere around Sunday afternoon on our drive back from camping in the mountains of West Virginia, I got hit with a huge surge of energy and motivation. With a week of vacation in front of me, and literally nothing planned, I suddenly saw a sea of possibility. I could hardly wait to dive in to our big list of projects on Monday morning – the feeling was that strong.

I’m always shocked by how much I can get done when I’m in the mood. “In the mood” basically means manic and vibrating with unharnessed energy. Ideas bounce around in my head at a dizzying pace, and yet I become hyper focused on whatever tasks I have decided should get done that day. This week, the ENTIRE week, was a manic one for me. I was excited, and driven, and ready to tackle just about anything.

In 7 days, we did more work than we’ve done in the last 3-4 months. The fence staining is done! The hallway doors and window are all trimmed out, caulked, and painted! The hallway is primed and painted! New light fixtures are up! The french doors (in the kitchen) got a fresh coat of spar varnish! We even started repairing the walls in one of our spare bedrooms.

I guess this is proof that just when you’ve lost hope of ever getting your fixer-upper mojo back, it’ll bite you in the ass and surprise the hell out of you. And you’ll be falling into bed exhausted at the end of a long day, chunks of drywall stuck to your hair and primer under your fingernails, bursting with pride, thinking “Wow, I can’t believe we waited so long to do this……..”