VAL - too funny about the shadow. This is how scared I used to be of spiders - I was walking up the steps of our house carrying my young son. When I got to the top of the steps and looked up there was a huge (probably would cast a shadow) spider right in front of my face - well the next thing I remember was standing in the middle of the front yard and my son was on the steps. That is when I decided I needed to deal with this fear.

Before I dealt with it - it was not good enough that my husband told me that he had killed a spider - I wanted to see its dead body.