Excitement and Anxiety: the Inside Scoop

I feel happy that both of my grandsons visited me today. I cooked a favorite meal for them and had their favorite snack in the freezer for dessert. Dinner had an hour more to bake when they arrived, so I used the time to share with them, the photos of the laying of the Stolpersteins in front of the house where my grandparents lived. They heard me retell my experience; they were attentive and interested. The older one is psyched to go to Auschwitz, although we both realize it won't be a fun day. He said he really wants to go to experience some of  what my uncle Wolf and the million and a half others suffered.
Grant wanted my brisket recipe but Austin said he won't need that for a long time as Grandma is going to live until 120!
The boys are getting along well, there seems to be little of the teasing that used to happen between them and they shared the dinner well, even asking me if I was going to eat any before they scarfed up the whole platter. They seemed more relaxed around me, but the visit was a short one.
I am not feeling relaxed, however. I resent the year in Grant's life that I missed and I regret the turn he is taking in buying himself an air gun which shoots bb's and going to an arena to practice shooting people. The influence of his father's brother, the retired border patrol agent, offends every fiber of my being.
I told him I believe we are put on this earth for more than to have fun, that I believe we are here to make the world a better place for our having been here. He said he was glad I said that as he feels the same way, sometimes, but that a small group can't change anything. I shared that I try to enlarge the group slowly so change can happen. I did not elaborate. More for another time. 

Anxiety and Excitement : What is the Difference or is there any? Trip Planning February 10, 2019

Somebody once said that excitement is anxiety without the stress. That's like my father helping me to tell my right hand from my left by telling me my left hand is the one that the thumb points to the right.
Today all the tickets have been purchased for our upcoming July trip to Europe: flights, hotels and rental car. I will not let myself add up the totals. I will be surprised when I get the credit card bill at the end of the month.
Austin is in charge of getting himself an international driving license and of downloading the app which gives driving directions in English for all of Europe so we don't have to stress about Polish or Croatian alphabets.
We will stay in Frankfurt at the same hotel where cousin Nora and I stayed when we traveled to Frankfurt in 2006 for the dedication of the "Stolperstein" in memory of Grandpa Salomon. We will visit the house where my grandparents lived and see the brass plaque on the sidewalk of the house. We will visit the memorial wall called the Mauer where the names of the 11000 Frankfurt citizens murdered by the Nazis are engraved. We will say a prayer for all my friends' and relatives' parents and grandparents who are memorialized there.  We'll do some sightseeing and then fly to Krakow where we will visit Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps where Uncle Wolf was murdered. We'll visit the Galicia Jewish Museum before heading out to see the countryside with the guide who will take us to the archives where my relatives' information is listed. Perhaps we will find the cemetery where our great grandparents are buried.
Then the guide leaves and we rent a car to drive to Vienna where we will stay in the same hotel that my husband and I visited when we were in Vienna on vacation.  Grandfather fled from Germany to Vienna when he was freed from prison, but the Germans had already taken over the country. Then we follow his footsteps to Zagreb, Croatia where he was murdered at Jasenovac concentration camp.
Four flights, seven hotels and a car rental! Now I have to find travel insurance.