It is a spider that your mom eat

Do you have a photo, or link to one, or can give us a very good description(that will still make it very hard if we can't see it).

*ADD* That is called an Eastern Spotted Orb Weaver. Lovely spiders, they can get to a good size. They're considered harmless, and make those awesome webs like you see in movies. lol They love to catch bugs. It wont bother you if you leave it be.

Here's a photo of one for you: http://www.hiltonpond.org/images/SpiderO...

It could very well be a Cross Orb Weaver like another said, that mark on the back makes that more likely than the Eastern Spotted, however I can't see it's full back to see if there's a cross, but it's very likely. What you have is a nice big female orb weaver of one of those two types. =) They're nice garden spiders, but they WILL bite if you pester them. Here's a cross orb weaver: http://nature.berkeley.edu/~callobius/cb...

I mean, we could help you if you had a picture.