Was told that IRS was not accepting returns until 1/29 for 2017 and Intuit said it will queue until 1/29/18. Now I get an email saying IRS accepted my return? What?

The IRS will pull test batches from the various tax preparation company servers to test their processes.  Yours seems to be in one of those test batches pulled.

Who sent you the email?

Intuit.  and I signed into IRS site to verify they did indeed receive it! 🙂

I received a text message and e-mail saying my Federal return was accepted today.

I also received an accepted email/text from Federal and State.

You got lucky.  Congrats.  However, as far as we know, refunds won't be paid until after 1/29 even for the early test returns.