Amber's work setup hasn't changed much over the years — there's still an iMac, a MacBook Air, and an iPad Air, and that's just the way she likes it.
I'll pull back the curtain on my personality a bit — but I'm willing to bet regular readers aren't going to be terribly surprised. I am a person of utility before novelty.
My desk tends to change very little from year to year. Most of my stuff has either been streamlined to the bare essentials, because I am not keeping a lot of personal touches here.
That's both a perk and a quirk of living at home. I don't feel compelled to decorate my desk; the rest of my room is decorated — but it does make for a rather boring "show-and-tell."
I do clean my desk up before I post it here, dear readers, because I don't need to tell on myself. My desk usually has a fair amount of crafting-based clutter on it at any given time.
Sometimes it's sketchbooks, sometimes it's crochet projects. Occasionally, it's gauche or watercolor paints, though that's much more rare these days.
Beyond that, we're still working with what I've shown you in years prior.
I didn't include a new picture of my M2 MacBook Air, but I still have it, use it, and like it well enough. I'm not much a laptop kinda girl, but it does let me work out of the house if need be.
Amber's M2 MacBook Air
My desk is a Jaxson Compact. I like it because it's got a lot of space, though it takes up a fair amount of space in my living room, so there are some definite downsides.
I do like the fact that it's a sit-to-stand desk, because it's not rare that I'll want to stand during the first half of my day. If I'm reading emails or sitting in work meetings, I'm usually standing.
My chair, which isn't pictured, is still the same Sihoo M18 I've had for years. It's fine, but I wouldn't consider it anything to write home about.
In the future, I'd like to swap it out for a Pipersong chair. I rarely sit still, and I often lament that I can't sit the way I would in an armchair or on a couch.
My main work Mac is still my 2021 M1 iMac. It's still my favorite computer I've ever owned, by far.
I love the ample screen, the sunny yellow color, and how pretty much whatever I throw at it, it handles it with grace. I've never had an issue with it, and I suspect that'll continue to be the case.
If it ever does decide to go quietly into that good night, I'm not entirely sure what I'd replace it with. My gut says another yellow iMac, just one that's newer.
But there's a good chance that I might try to future-proof with a Mac mini. The biggest issue is that I really, really, really like the iMac display.
I still use the Hyperdrive iMac Hub, which screws onto the bottom of my iMac in the right-hand corner. As it turns out, I'm still using USB-A devices, even well into 2025.
At the top of my iMac is an old BenQ ScreenBar that has survived two moves. I use this more off the clock than I do on the clock — I like directional lighting.
Now that it gets dark at 4:15pm, I use this light all the time
At the bottom is an old Satechi USB-C Slim Dock. I'd love to tell you that I ever upgraded it to be additional storage for my iMac, but it is, exclusively, used to power my BenQ Screen Bar.
My keyboard is my old, trusty Lofree Flow with the extended numbered keys. This is still a 5/5 keyboard for me, and I don't know if there's a way I could personally think to make it better.
In the rare occasion that I swap keyboards, like when I'm cleaning this one, I use another Lofree, the 1%.
The biggest perk of the Lofree Flow is that it has smooth switches
I like the Lofree 1%, but I play a lot of Caves of Qud, and I really want the extended number pad for that. It's also louder than the Flow, which makes me a little hesitant to use it for long periods when I share a room with someone else.
At the back is my Mag:3 Classics Device Charging Tray. I like the idea more than the physical object; it collects bits of dirt and isn't easily cleaned.
A great idea, in theory, but I hate how grubby it gets.
I plan on eventually swapping it out for a different MagSafe charger that can charge both my iPhone 17 and my AirPods Pro 2 at the same time. But alas, I haven't found anything that really seems worth the upgrade yet.
In an ideal world, it'd be nice if I could find one that matched my iMac. Unfortunately, I've not come across any pastel yellow dual MagSafe chargers just yet.
My old trusty Logitech mouse that I'd used for two years finally bit the dust. I don't fault Logitech, though, because I pretty much live on my computer and this sort of thing is bound to happen.
The replacement isn't anything fancy. It's a Logitech Wireless Mouse from the Design Series and it works well for what I need it to.
My iPad still regularly occupies a corner of my desk, though I'll be pretty honest here: It doesn't get a lot of use. It's an iPad Air 4, which makes it a little over five years old.
It's not that the iPad is bad performance-wise. It's not. It actually has held up surprisingly well. The big issue here is that the battery life, at some point, decided to go from "good, but not great" to "don't use it for too much without having it plugged in."
There was a time when I would have probably balked at the idea of not having an iPad. Unfortunately, I think at this current juncture in my life, the idea of upgrading is very, very low on my list.
One notable change is that I have a label printer that sometimes lives on the back right corner of my desk. I ship things out from time to time, and after years of saying I'd eventually get a label printer, I finally snagged one in the middle of 2025.
My label printer has made shipping significantly less annoying
If you ship anything regularly, I'd suggest getting one. I got mine from eBay — I couldn't even tell you the brand — but you can find them on Amazon, too.
And that, dear readers, is my desk. I anticipate that my cohorts will have far more interesting desks than I do, but maybe my setup is interesting in the fact that I have, more or less, perfected my desk setup.
Well, for my purposes at least.
