I think you are discovering the difference between a flight log---a
legal document---and a flight journal, where you record memories. I
suggest you keep both.

For "local long distance" flights, where I hop from place to place but
end up back home at the end of the day, I put an extra column in my log
and marked it "VIA". In there I list any local airports I may have
stopped at for gas or nature. Often, a "real" cross-country flight will
end up there as well if I forget to write down the Hobbs time while I'm
there. In that case I do it all on one line---mark the total time down
as x-c and just put the airport where I stopped in the VIA column. Then
I have a record of where I landed and the total time for the flight. I
specifically do not put down places I simply flew over---that's for the
journal.

I have noticed over the years that I use that column more and more as my
concept of "local" has expanded with experience. I now include trips to
work in my definition of "local" even though they are 150 miles away. I
still mark the time down as cross-country, of course, I just don't go
into the same detail I would if I were going to a neighboring state, for
example.

Having a faster plane changes things as well! A 1-hour flight in my
Beech puts me a LOT farther away than it did in a rented 152.