When you have issues, always try to find opportunities. We all know that saying, but a lot of us don’t believe it since it sounds too simple for the challenges we have in real life. But every once in a while, someone like Cara Brookins reveals just how strong that way of thinking can be.
Cara has five kids and was caught in a bad marriage. It wasn’t just her; it was also transforming the lives of her kids every day. She knew that something had to be done. She made a daring choice and ran away. She took her kids and left that horrible place, promising to start over even though she didn’t have a clear plan and not many resources. But she was set on it.
She needed a house for her family to live, but she couldn’t afford one that was big enough or safe enough for her kids at the time. At that point, she had an idea. It would have seemed absurd to most people, but for Cara, it was the only thing she could do: she would build the house herself. From the ground up. She didn’t have any professional training in construction and didn’t have a team of contractors.
She just really wanted to make sure her kids had a safe future. Cara was used to dealing with hard difficulties because she worked as a computer programmer analyst. It was the only thing she could do, so she went online for aid. She studied YouTube videos, read instructions, and created her own plans. Then she got to work and rolled up her sleeves.
In 2007, Cara bought a one-acre piece of land for $20,000 and took out a loan for roughly $150,000 to build a house. With her kids’ aid, who were two to seventeen years old at the time, she started building what would become a 3,500-square-foot home. Jada, her 11-year-old daughter, had to carry buckets of water from the neighbor’s pond because there was no running water on the land. Her son Drew helped her make the plans for the building. They all helped mix the concrete, pour the foundation, build the walls, install the plumbing, and wire the house. Every afternoon after school, the pupils would go to the site to help build their own future.
Cara did get help with the parts she couldn’t handle by herself. She paid a part-time firefighter with building experience $25 an hour to help them with the hardest sections of the building. “He knew more than we did,” she claimed. But they did most of the labor, including the hard work, the mistakes, and the successes.
On March 31, 2009, they moved into the house they built with their own hands. Cara named it “Inkwell Manor” because it was a reference to her long-held dream of becoming a writer. It was more than simply a house; it was a symbol of everything they had lived through.
Cara now says that the whole situation seems impossible. She said, “Anyone would do this in our situation.” “I know it sounds crazy now, but no one else thought of it this way.” The homestead was not a fun hobby or a gimmick for her and her kids; it was a way to stay alive. And it turned out to be the finest thing she could have done for herself and her family.
“We were ashamed that we had to build our own shelter,” Cara added. “We weren’t very proud of 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 flawless. It means going on even when you’re scared and it seems impossible.
She was a 110-pound woman who had never constructed anything before, but she used online videos and her own determination to build a whole house with her kids. This proved that anyone can take control of their life if they really want to. She says, “Choose one goal and stick to it.” “Begin small and bring people who need to heal along.” That has a lot of strength.
You can do more than just create a home if you don’t let your situation define you, as Cara Brookins’ experience reveals. You can begin again.
This tale touched more than just you. It reminds us of how strong we can be when we choose to be hopeful instead of hopeless, brave instead of scared, and to take action instead of not taking action.