When you have problems, always look for ways to make them better. We all know that saying, but many of us don’t believe it since it sounds too easy for the issues we confront in real life. But every once in a while, someone like Cara Brookins shows how powerful that way of thinking can be.
Cara was in a bad marriage and had five kids. It wasn’t just her life that was changing; it was also her kids’ lives. She knew that something had to be done. So she made a daring choice and ran away. She took her kids and left that terrible place, promising to start over even though she didn’t have a clear plan and not many resources. But she was determined.
She needed a house for her family to reside, but at the time, she couldn’t afford one that was big enough or safe enough for her kids. She thought of something at that point. Most people would have thought it was crazy, but for Cara, it was the only thing she could do: she would build the house herself. From the ground up.
No professional construction experience, no team of contractors, just a deep determination to protect her kids’ future. As a computer programmer analyst, Cara was used to dealing with hard situations. She turned to the internet for aid since that was all she had. She researched guides, watched YouTube videos, and formed her own plans. Then she rolled up her sleeves and got to work.
In 2007, Cara borrowed $150,000 to build a house and bought a one-acre piece of land for $20,000. With the help of her kids, who were two to seventeen years old at the time, she began building what would become a 3,500-square-foot house.
Her 11-year-old daughter Jada had to bring buckets of water from the neighbor’s pond because there was no running water on the land. Drew, her son, helped her make the plans for the building. They all worked together to mix the concrete, put in the plumbing, run the wires, and build the walls. Every day after school, the students would travel to the site to help build their own future.
Cara did obtain help with the parts she couldn’t handle on her own. She hired a part-time firefighter who had worked on buildings before to help them with the hardest aspects of the structure for $25 an hour. “He knew more than we did,” she claimed. But most of the effort—the hard work, the failures, and the breakthroughs—was done by them.
On March 31, 2009, they moved into the house they built with their own hands. Cara named it “Inkwell Manor” since it was a tribute to her long-held dream of becoming a writer. It was more than simply a house; it showed everything they had been through.
Cara now says that the whole thing sounds like it can’t happen. She added, “Anyone would do this in our place.” “I know it sounds crazy now, but no one else saw it this way.” The homestead wasn’t just a project or a gimmick for her and her kids; it was how they stayed alive. And it turned out to be the best thing she ever done for herself and her family.
“We were ashamed that we had to make our own shelter,” Cara added. “We weren’t very happy about it, but it turned out to be the best thing I could have done for myself.” She wants people to know that being great doesn’t equal being perfect. It means continuing forward even when you’re scared and think you can’t do it.
She was a woman who weighed 110 pounds and had never built anything before, but she built a whole house with her kids using online videos and her own determination. This showed that anyone can take control of their life if they really want to. “Choose one goal and stick to it,” she advises. “Start small and bring people who need to heal with you.” That has a lot of strength.
Cara Brookins’ experience shows that you can do more than just build a house if you don’t let your situation define you. You can start over.
This tale moved a lot of people, not just you. It makes us remember how strong we can be when we choose hope over despair, courage over fear, and action over inaction.
