Anybody seen my green thumb?

I have a confession: the gecko green room (belonging to Boy #1) is really pretty nice. After the first coat -- OK and the second -- I was pretty sure it was horrible and that we'd have to find somewhere else to say our bedtimes prayers. Because there was no way I'd be able to set foot in it ever again.

The painting begins

Behold: gecko green abounds

But somewhere between coats 3 and 4 -- oh yeah, you read that right. We needn't go into now why Sherwin Williams is both my most and least favorite of paint stores -- it started growing on me.

Which is good. Because I'm having trouble growing much of anything else at The House. For instance:

Sorry tomato plant

Close-up

My <ahem> lovely tomato plant. Actually, it's two plants: one regular tomato and one grape tomato, plus a sweet red pepper for good measure. With all our rain this summer, it's actually produced a decent crop. The grape tomatoes were huge -- looked like mini romas -- and were pretty tasty. The single sweet red pepper it produced was wonderful. 

But something kept tasting the full-sized tomatoes. And then the ones that hadn't been sampled ended up tasting sorta fishy. How? No idea. And yet, look at the close-up: there's new growth and blossoms alongside the sorry, dead shoots.

And then there's this: 

Once upon a time, when it was gifted to me, it was a lovely succulent with sweet little yellow flowers. Now it's a stick showing off just a bit. It's a good thing I don't take this personally. . . and that I can grow other, normal houseplants. 

Also that we live fairly close to the grocery store. 

-ma'am